...On the night of 21-22 June 1944 the Red Army launched its summer offensive in Belorussia, three years to the day after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. In 1941 the Germans had achieved total surprise, encircling millions of Russian troops and thrusting right up to Moscow and Leningrad. In 1944, however, the tables were turned. Operation Bagration, named for a Tsarist marshal who had fought Napoleon, hit the Wehrmacht with no warning. In five weeks, the Red Army advanced 450 miles, driving through Minsk to the outskirts of Warsaw and tearing the guts out of Hitlers Army Group Centre. Nearly 20 German divisions were totally destroyed and another 50 severely mauled – an even worse disaster than Stalingrad. This stunning Soviet success occurred while Overlord was still stuck in the hedges and lanes of Normandy. Not until the end of July, as Bagration finally ran out of steam, did Eisenhowers armies break out and race across France to liberate Paris on 25 August and Brussels on 3 September. Overlord and Bagration together delivered the double whammy that knocked out the Thousand-Year Reich. At last, Nazi Germany was fighting a two-front war in northern Europe – the dread scenario Hitler had managed to avoid since 1939 – and the German people could now see the writing on the wall. It is no accident that on 20 July dissident officers tried to assassinate the Führer in a brave but quixotic bid to make peace before Germany was ruined. Bagration helped to end the war, but it was also a sign of things to come. As the Red Army neared Warsaw, the Polish Home Army rose up against brutal Nazi occupation. Soviet forces were exhausted and in no position to fight their way into a major city, but Stalins refusal to provide even token support for the Poles, or to let British and American supply planes use Soviet-controlled airfields, sent a chilling message to his western allies...
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:47:58 +0000
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