Central front

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The Central Front ( Russian Центральный фронт ) was a large unit of the Red Army formed several times during the Second World War , which was renamed the Belorussian Front ( 1st Belarusian Front ) on October 20, 1943 after the advance of the front troops to the borders of Belarus .

Central Front - 1st Formation (July / August 1941)

Commander in chief
Chief of Staff
Member of the council of war

At the end of June 1941 the remnants of the " Western Front " defeated in the Białystok and Minsk Kessel Battle fell back on the Beresina , the Dvina and the Dnepr . In the first half of July there (from south to north) the 21st , 13th , 20th , 19th and 22nd Army took up positions. In addition, remnants of the 4th Army gathered in the area of ​​the 13th Army and in the middle of July the 16th Army arrived in the Smolensk area . After the start of the new German offensive (→ Kesselschlacht bei Smolensk ) on July 10, 1941, it became obvious that commanding seven armies over a front line of several hundred kilometers was impractical.

Therefore, on July 23, the Stawka VGK issued an order to divide the south wing of the "Western Front" with effect from July 24 at midnight. Colonel-General Fyodor I. Kuznetsov , who until then had commanded the 21st Army, was appointed the new Commander-in-Chief of the "Central Front" . The headquarters of the front was made up of the staff of the 4th Army, which was disbanded. The troops on the Central Front were initially the 13th Army (reinforced by the units of the disbanded 4th Army) and the 21st Army. On August 1, she received the newly established 3rd Army from the reserve of the High Command . The headquarters were in Gomel . The "Central Front" had 136 aircraft to support it, 75 of which were operational. These were commanded by Major General Grigori A. Vorosheikin .

The task of the "Central Front" was initially to build a stable defense on the Sosh to cover Gomel. Furthermore, according to its name, it was supposed to cover the space between the " Southwest Front " and the "West Front". Initially, the front was only faced by the German 2nd Army , which it was able to offer stubborn resistance. Only when the right wing of the "Central Front" was exposed after the Battle of Roslavl (August 1–7, 1941) did their situation become critical. Soon after, it was attacked from this direction by German Panzer Group 2 . In the developing Battle of Gomel (August 8-21 , 1941), the armies of the front suffered considerable losses.

The Stawka VGK had already created the new " Brjansk Front " ( Lieutenant General Andrei I. Jerjomenko ) on the right wing of the front on August 14, to which the 13th Army was also subordinated. In order to centralize the fighting in this section, the Stawka VGK decided on August 24, 1941 to dissolve the "Central Front" and subordinate its troops to the "Brjansk Front" (the 3rd and 21st Armies were combined). This regulation came into effect on the night of August 26th (midnight). The commander-in-chief of the "Central Front" was also appointed Yeryomenko's deputy.

Central front - 2nd formation

On February 15, 1943, a central front was activated again, which arose from the renaming of the Don Front under Colonel General KK Rokossowski and was reinforced by reserve armies. Major General KF Telegin remained in their previous positions as a member of the Military Council and Lieutenant General MS Malinin as Chief of Staff . During the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, the following major units were subordinate to the Central Front :

The second formation of the Central Front was renamed the Belorussian Front on October 20, 1943, and the 1st Belorussian Front on February 17, 1944 .

1. Belarusian Front

1szy białoruski.jpg

The 1st Belarusian Front , renamed on February 17, 1944, was supposed to advance to Bobrujsk and Brest - Lublin in the summer of 1944 . The front was launched in June 1944, Colonel General Konstantin Rokossovsky in Belarus at the Operation Bagration (Bobruisk operation and the Rogachev Pushed liner operation ) part which to smash the German 4th and 9th Army led. The front initially comprised the 3rd , 47th , 48th , 61st , 65th , 69th , 70th Army and the 16th Air Army . Later came the first and second Guards Tank Army , the 3rd and 5th Shock Army , the 8th Guards Army and as a reserve, the 28th and the 33rd Army and the Polish 2nd Army added.

Marshal Georgi Konstantinowitsch Schukow was appointed commander of the 1st Belarusian Front in November 1944 in time to lead the last decisive offensives against the German Reich : the Vistula-Oder Operation (here the Warsaw-Posener Operation ) and the Battle of the Or and the Berlin operation . After the occupation of Poland and East Prussia from January to March 1945, the Soviet army carried out its fastest regrouping of the entire war in the first two weeks of April. While this regrouping was being carried out, there were gaps in the front line through which the remains of the German 2nd Army trapped near Danzig were able to escape across the Oder. Marshal Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belarusian Front, which had marched up along the Oder from Frankfurt in the south to the Baltic Sea , in an area in front of the Seelow Heights ( Seelow ). The 2nd Byelorussian Front under Army General Rokossovsky moved north of it into the positions previously abandoned.

At dawn on April 16, the Berlin operation began , the final offensive of the war to conquer Berlin with attacks by the 1st Belarusian Front and in the south of the 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Konev . Initially, the 1st Belarusian Front had great difficulty breaking through the German defense lines on the Seelow Heights, but after three days of bitter fighting it had broken through and reached the outskirts of Berlin. On April 22nd, she had invaded the northern and eastern suburbs of Berlin. The enclosure of Berlin was completed on April 25th when units of the 1st Belarusian and 1st Ukrainian fronts met at Ketzin in western Berlin. After heavy street and house fighting , General Helmuth Weidling , the commander of the Berlin garrison, drove to General Vasily Iwanowitsch Tschuikow on May 2nd and surrendered Berlin unconditionally at 3 p.m. CEST . On May 8, after a surrender was signed in Berlin, the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies , which ended the war in Europe.

Troop strength 1945

In June 1945, the first Belorussian Front possessed in the Soviet zone of occupation over

Front command

Central front (1st formation)

commander

Member of the Military Council

Chief of Staff

  • Colonel LM Sandalow (July-August 1941)
  • Lieutenant General GG Sokolow (August 1941)

Central front (2nd formation)

commander

  • Colonel-General Konstantin Konstantinowitsch Rokossowski (February - October 1943) (since April 1943 Army General)

Member of the Military Council

  • Major General KF Telegin (February - October 1943) (since August 1943 Lieutenant General)

Chief of Staff

  • Lieutenant General MS Malinin (February - October 1943) (since September 1943 Colonel General)

1. Belarusian Front

commander

Member of the Military Council

  • Lieutenant General KF Telegin (February 1944 - end of war)

Chief of Staff

  • Colonel General MS Malinin (February 1944 - end of war)

Timeline 1. Belarusian front

1944

  • February 17: Establishment by renaming the Belarusian Front
  • June 26th: After attacks by the 1st Belarusian Front, Bobrujsk is surrounded and 40,000 men from the German XXXXI. Panzer Corps (part of 9th Army ) included.
  • Early August: Front troops form a bridgehead over the Vistula
  • September 14: The 1st Belarusian Front, with the support of Polish forces, takes Praga , a suburb of Warsaw .
  • November: Marshal Georgi Zhukov becomes Commander-in-Chief of the 1st Belarusian Front

1945

  • January 14th: The 1st Belarusian Front opens attacks from two Vistula bridgeheads in the south of Warsaw, one of which contains 400,000 men and 1,700 tanks.
  • January 24th: The 1st and 2nd Byelorussian Fronts advance into Pomerania . The German 2nd Army is cut off.
  • January 25th: The 1st Belarusian Front encloses the Poznan fortress with 66,000 German defenders and continues its 80 km daily advance.
  • January 31: The 1st Byelorussian Front reaches the Oder north of Küstrin and sets up a bridgehead on the western bank, less than 60 km from Berlin.
  • February 1st: The 1st Belarusian front includes the Küstrin fortress.
  • February 2: The 1st Belarusian Front reaches the Oder south of Frankfurt an der Oder.
  • February 6th: The 1st Belarusian Front spreads along the east bank of the Oder between Frankfurt and Küstrin.
  • February 23: The 1st Byelorussian Front takes Poznan after months of siege.
  • March 4: The 1st Belarusian front breaks through at Stargard and pushes against Stettin and at the same time builds a new bridgehead south of Frankfurt over the Oder.
  • March 27th: The 1st Belarusian Front takes part in heavy street fighting in Gdansk .
  • March 28th: ​​The 1st Belarusian Front takes Gotenhafen north of Danzig.
  • March 29th: Küstrin fortress falls
  • March 30th: Soviet troops take Danzig.
  • April 16: The 1st Byelorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts launch a major attack against Berlin from the Oder-Neisse line .
  • April 17: The 1st Belarusian Front is held up by tough German resistance on the Seelow Heights , three kilometers west of the Oder, with great Soviet losses of troops and tanks.
  • April 18: The 1st Belarusian Front continues to smash the German positions on the Seelow Heights in a war of attrition.
  • April 19: The 1st Belarusian Front breaks through the German defense on the Seelow Heights and pushes very quickly into Berlin.
  • April 22nd: The 1st Belarusian Front invades the northern and eastern suburbs of Berlin
  • April 25: Units of the 1st Belarusian and 1st Ukrainian fronts meet at Ketzin west of Berlin. Berlin is now completely enclosed by eight Soviet armies.
  • April 30: Zhukov rejects the agreement of a ceasefire with the defenders of Berlin and demands unconditional surrender
  • May 2: General Weidling , the combat commandant of Berlin, meets General Tschuikow and accepts his demand for an unconditional surrender of Berlin. The Berlin garrison stopped fighting at three in the afternoon.
  • May 8th: The ratification ceremony of the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht takes place before the Allies in Karlshorst .
  • June 10: The 1st Belarusian Front is dissolved. Your high command will be transformed into the command of the Soviet armed forces in Germany .

literature

  • Hans-Albert Hoffmann, Siegfried Stoof: Soviet troops in Germany and their headquarters in Wünsdorf 1945–1994: history, facts, background . Köster, Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-89574-835-6 .
  • John Erickson : The Road to Stalingrad , 1975. (Yale University Press 1999, ISBN 978-0-300-07812-1 )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David M. Glantz: Barabrossa derailed - The Battle for Smolensk 10 July-10 September 1941 , Vol. 1, Solihull 2010, p. 156
  2. ↑ David M. Glantz: Barabrossa derailed - The Battle for Smolensk 10 July-10 September 1941 , Vol. 1, Solihull 2010, pp. 153f, 293
  3. ↑ History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union , Vol. 2, Berlin (East) 1963, p. 83
  4. ↑ David M. Glantz: Barabrossa derailed - The Battle for Smolensk 10 July-10 September 1941 , Vol. 1, Solihull 2010, p. 157
  5. ↑ AM Wassilewski: thing of the whole life , berlin (Ost) 1977, p. 125f
  6. ↑ Hans-Albert Hoffmann, Siegfried Stoof: Soviet troops in Germany and their headquarters in Wünsdorf 1945–1994: history, facts, background . Köster, Berlin 2013.