| Vistula–Oder offensive | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theEastern Front ofWorld War II | |||||||||
 Soviet troops enterŁódź, led by anISU-122self-propelled gun | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Germany |  Soviet Union Poland | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Ferdinand Schörner (Army Group A) (From 20 January) Josef Harpe (Army Group A)(Until 20 January) | Georgy Zhukov (1st Belorussian Front)Ivan Konev (1st Ukrainian Front)Stanislav Poplavsky (1st Polish Army) | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 450,000–800,000 men[1] | 2,203,600 men[2] | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Soviet claim: 626,000 casualties 295,000 killed 147,000 taken prisoner 189,000 wounded[3] | 43,476 killed or missing 150,715 wounded and sick[2] | ||||||||
TheVistula–Oder offensive (Russian:Висло-Одерская операция,romanized: Vislo–Oderskaya operatsiya) was aRed Army operation on theEastern Front in theEuropean theatre of World War II in January 1945. The army made a major advance intoGerman-heldterritory, capturingKraków,Warsaw andPoznań. The Red Army had built up their strength around a number of keybridgeheads, with two fronts commanded by MarshalGeorgy Zhukov and MarshalIvan Konev. Against them, the GermanArmy Group A, led by Colonel-GeneralJosef Harpe (soon replaced by Colonel-GeneralFerdinand Schörner), was outnumbered five to one. Within days, German commandants evacuated theconcentration camps, sending the prisoners on theirdeath marches to the west, where ethnic Germans also started fleeing. In a little over two weeks, the Red Army had advanced 480 kilometres (300 mi) from theVistula to theOder, only 69 kilometres (43 mi) from Berlin, which was undefended. However, Zhukov called a halt, owing to continued German resistance on his northern flank (Pomerania), and the advance on Berlin had to be delayed until April.
In the wake of the successfulOperation Bagration, the1st Belorussian Front managed to secure twobridgeheads west of theVistula river between 27 July and 4 August 1944.[4] The Soviet forces remained inactive during the failedWarsaw uprising that started on 1 August, though their frontline was not far from the insurgents. The1st Ukrainian Front captured an additional large bridgehead atSandomierz (known as the Baranow bridgehead in German accounts), some 200 km south of Warsaw, during theLvov–Sandomierz offensive.[5]
Preceding the offensive, the Red Army had built up large amounts ofmateriel and manpower in the three bridgeheads. The Red Army greatly outnumbered the opposing Wehrmacht in infantry, artillery, and armour. All this was known to German intelligence. GeneralReinhard Gehlen, head ofFremde Heere Ost, passed his assessment toHeinz Guderian. Guderian in turn presented the intelligence results toAdolf Hitler, who refused to believe them, dismissing the apparent Soviet strength as "the greatest imposture sinceGenghis Khan".[6] Guderian had proposed to evacuate the divisions ofArmy Group North trapped in theCourland Pocket to the Reich via theBaltic Sea to get the necessary manpower for the defence, but Hitler forbade it. In addition, Hitler commanded that one major operational reserve, the troops ofSepp Dietrich's6th Panzer Army, be moved toHungary to supportOperation Frühlingserwachen.
The offensive was brought forward from 20 to 12 January because meteorological reports warned of a thaw later in the month, and the tanks needed hard ground for the offensive. It was not done to assist American and British forces during theBattle of the Bulge, as Stalin chose to claim at Yalta.[7]
Two fronts of the Red Army were directly involved. The 1st Belorussian Front, holding the sector aroundWarsaw and southward in theMagnuszew andPuławy bridgeheads, was led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov; the 1st Ukrainian Front, occupying the Sandomierz bridgehead, was led by MarshalIvan Konev.
Zhukov and Konev had 163 divisions for the operation with a total of: 2,203,000 infantry, 4,529 tanks, 2,513assault guns, 13,763 pieces offield artillery (76 mm or more), 14,812mortars, 4,936anti-tank guns, 2,198Katyusha multiple rocket launchers, and 5,000 aircraft.[8]
Soviet forces in this sector were opposed byArmy Group A, defending a front which stretched from positions east of Warsaw southwards along the Vistula, almost to the confluence of theSan. At that point there was a large Soviet bridgehead over the Vistula in the area ofBaranów before the front continued south toJasło.
There were three armies in the group; the9th Army, deployed around Warsaw, the4th Panzer Army, opposite the Baranow salient in the Vistula Bend, and the17th Army to their south.[9] The force had a total complement of 450,000 soldiers, 4,100 artillery pieces, and 1,150 tanks.[10] Army Group A was led byColonel-GeneralJosef Harpe (who was replaced, after the offensive had begun, by Colonel-GeneralFerdinand Schörner on 20 January).[11]
German intelligence had estimated that the Soviet forces had a 3:1 numerical superiority to the German forces; there was in fact a 5:1 superiority.[13] More specifically, a report compiled by General Reinhard Gehlen of theFremde Heer Ost (Foreign Armies East) estimated the Russians had a 11:1 superiority in infantry, 7:1 in tanks and 20:1 in artillery and aircraft for the start of the offensive. Hitler reportedly scoffed at the numbers and is quoted as saying of the numbers: "It is the greatest bluff since Genghis Khan"[14] In the large Baranow/Sandomierz bridgehead, the Fourth Panzer Army was required to defend from "strongpoints" in some areas, as it lacked the infantry to man a continuous front line.[15] In addition, on Hitler's express orders, the two German defence lines (theGrosskampflinie andHauptkampflinie) were positioned very close to each other, placing the main defences well within striking range of Soviet artillery.[16]
The offensive commenced in the Baranow bridgehead at 04:35 on 12 January with an intense bombardment by the guns of the 1st Ukrainian Front against the positions of the 4th Panzer Army.[17] Concentrated against the divisions of XLVIII Panzer Corps, which had been deployed across the face of the bridgehead, the bombardment effectively destroyed their capacity to respond; a battalion commander in the68th Infantry Division stated that "I began the operation with an understrength battalion [...] after the smoke of the Soviet preparation cleared [...] I had only a platoon of combat effective soldiers left".[18]
The initial barrage was followed by probing attacks and a further heavy bombardment at 10:00. By the time the main armored exploitation force of the 3rd Guards and 4th Tank armies moved forward four hours later, the Fourth Panzer Army had already lost up to two-thirds of its artillery and one-fourth of its troops.[19]
The Soviet units made rapid progress, moving to cut off the defenders atKielce. The armored reserves of the 4th Panzer Army's central corps, the XXIV Panzer Corps, were committed but had suffered serious damage by the time they reached Kielce, and were already being outflanked. The XLVIII Panzer Corps, on the Fourth Panzer Army's southern flank, had by this time been completely destroyed, along with much of Recknagel's XLII Corps in the north. Recknagel himself would be killed by Polish partisans on 23 January. By 14 January, the 1st Ukrainian Front had forced crossings of theNida river, and began to exploit towardsRadomsko and theWarthe. The 4th Panzer Army's last cohesive formation, the XXIV Panzer Corps, held on around Kielce until the night of 16 January, before its commander made the decision to withdraw.
The 1st Belorussian Front, to Konev's north, opened its attack on the German 9th Army from the Magnuszew and Puławy bridgeheads at 08:30, again commencing with a heavy bombardment.[20] The 33rd and 69th armies broke out of the Puławy bridgehead to a depth of 30 km (19 mi), while the 5th Shock and 8th Guards armies broke out of the Magnuszew bridgehead. The 2nd and 1st guards tank armies were committed after them to exploit the breach. The 69th Army's progress from the Puławy bridgehead was especially successful, with the defending LVI Panzer Corps disintegrating after its line of retreat was cut off. Though the 9th Army conducted many local counter-attacks, they were all brushed aside; the 69th Army ruptured the last lines of defence and tookRadom, while the 2nd Guards Tank Army moved onSochaczew and the 1st Guards Tank Army was ordered to seize bridgeheads over thePilica and attack towardsŁódź.[21] In the meantime, the 47th Army had crossed the Vistula and moved towards Warsaw from the north, while the 61st and 1st Polish armies encircled the city from the south.[22]
The only major German response came on 15 January, when Hitler (against the advice of Guderian) ordered thePanzerkorps Großdeutschland ofDietrich von Saucken fromEast Prussia to cover the breach made in the sector of the 4th Panzer Army, but the advance of Zhukov's forces forced it to detrain at Łódź without even reaching its objective. After covering the 9th Army's retreat, it was forced to withdraw southwest toward the Warthe.[23]
On 17 January, Konev was given new objectives: to advance towardsBreslau using his mechanised forces, and to use the combined-arms forces of the 60th and 59th armies to open an attack on the southern flank towards the industrial heartland of Upper Silesia throughKraków. Kraków was secured undamaged on 19 January after an encirclement by the 59th and 60th armies, in conjunction with the 4th Guards Tank Corps, forced the German defenders to withdraw hurriedly.[24]
The second stage of the 1st Ukrainian Front's objective was far more complex, as they were required to encircle and secure the entire industrial region of Upper Silesia, where they were faced by Schulz's 17th Army. Konev ordered that the 59th and 60th armies advance frontally, while the 21st Army encircled the area from the north. He then ordered Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army, moving on Breslau, to swing southwards along the upper Oder from 20 January, cutting off 17th Army's withdrawal.[25]
In the meantime, the shattered remnants of the 4th Panzer Army were still attempting to reach German lines. By 18 January, Nehring and the XXIV Panzer Corps found that their intended route northwards had been blocked, so pulled back to the west, absorbing the remnants of XLII Corps that had escaped encirclement.[26] Much of the remainder of XLII Corps was destroyed after being trapped aroundPrzysucha. Screened by heavy fog, the lead elements of XXIV Panzer Corps reached the Warthe on 22 January, and having linked up with Grossdeutschland Panzer Corps of von Saucken, were finally able to cross the Oder, some 350 km (220 mi) from their positions at the start of the Soviet offensive.
On 25 January, Schulz requested that he be allowed to withdraw his 100,000 troops from the developing salient aroundKatowice/Kattowitz. This was refused, and he repeated the request on 26 January. Schoerner eventually permitted Schulz to pull his forces back on the night of 27 January, while Konev – who had allowed just enough room for the 17th Army to withdraw without putting up serious resistance – secured the area undamaged.[27]
On Konev's northern flank, the 4th Tank Army had spearheaded an advance to the Oder, where it secured a major bridgehead atSteinau. Troops of the 5th Guards Army established a second bridgehead upstream atOhlau.
In the northern sector of the offensive, Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front also made rapid progress, as the 9th Army was no longer able to offer coherent resistance. Its XXXVI Panzer Corps, which was positioned behind Warsaw, was pushed over the Vistula into the neighbouringSecond Army sector.[28] Warsaw was taken on 17 January, as Army Group A's headquarters issued orders for the city to be abandoned; units of the 2nd Guards and 3rd Shock Armies entering the city were profoundly affected by the devastation wrought by German forces after theWarsaw Uprising.[29] Hitler, on the other hand, was furious at the abandonment of the "fortress", arresting ColonelBogislaw von Bonin, head of the Operations Branch ofOKH, and sacking both the 9th Army and XXXVI Panzer Corps commanders; generalsSmilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz andWalter Fries.
The 2nd Guards Tank Army pressed forward to the Oder, while to the south the 8th Guards Army reached Łódź by 18 January, and took it by 19 January. The 1st Guards Tank Army moved to encirclePoznań by 25 January, and the 8th Guards Army began to fight its way into the city on the following day, though there was protracted and intense fighting in theSiege of Poznań before the city would finally be taken.
To the northeast of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front, the lead elements of MarshalRokossovsky's2nd Belorussian Front taking part in theEast Prussian offensive had reached the Baltic coast of theVistula delta by 24 January and so succeeded in isolatingArmy Group Centre in East Prussia.[30] On 27 January, the abandonedWolf's Lair – Hitler's former headquarters on the Eastern Front, was captured.
After encircling Poznań, the 1st Guards Tank Army advanced deep into the fortified region around theObra River against patchy resistance from a variety ofVolkssturm andWehrmacht units. There was heavier resistance, however, on the approaches to the fortress ofKüstrin.
The German reorganisation of command structure that resulted in the creation ofArmy Group Vistula was accompanied by the release of a few extra formations for the defense; theV SS Mountain Corps, with two reserve infantry divisions, was deployed along the Obra and the prewar border fortifications known as theTierschtigel Riegel, while thePanzergrenadier-Division Kurmark was ordered to reinforce it.[31]
On 16 January 1945Colonel Bogislaw von Bonin, the chief of the Operational Branch of the Army General Staff (Generalstab des Heeres) gave Army Group A permission to retreat from Warsaw, overruling a direct order from Hitler for them to hold fast. Three days later von Bonin was arrested by theGestapo and imprisoned first atFlossenbürg and thenDachauconcentration camp. The officer was eventuallyliberated along with other prisoners inSouth Tyrol by the US Army in May 1945.
The military historian Earl Ziemke described the advance thus:
On the 25th, Zhukov's main force passed Poznań heading due west towardsKuestrin, on the Oder forty miles [64 km] east of Berlin. The path of the Soviet advance looked like the work of a gigantic snowplough, its point aimed on a line from Warsaw to Poznań, to Berlin. All of Army Group A was being caught up by the point and the left blade and thrown across the Oder. On the right the German had nothing except a skeleton army group that Hitler had created some days earlier and named Army Group Vistula.
— Earl Ziemke[32]
On 25 January, Hitler renamed three army groups. Army Group North becameArmy Group Courland; Army Group Centre became Army Group North and Army Group A became Army Group Centre.[33]
The 2nd Guards Tank and 5th Shock armies reached the Oder almost unopposed; a unit of the 5th Shock Army crossed the river ice and took the town ofKienitz as early as 31 January.[34]
Stavka declared the operation complete on 2 February. Zhukov had initially hoped to advance directly on Berlin, as the German defences had largely collapsed. However, the exposed northern flank of the 1st Belorussian Front inPomerania, along with a German counter-attack (Operation Solstice) against its spearheads, convinced the Soviet command that it was essential to clear German forces from Pomerania in theEast Pomeranian offensive before the Berlin offensive could proceed.
In July 1944, the Soviet8th Guards liberatedLublin, and after a brief skirmish with German forces outside the city, came upon theMajdanek concentration camp. Although the Soviets invited press from around the world to witness the horrors of the camp, other war news overshadowed the event.
After being caught off guard at Majdanek, the Nazis realized that the Soviets would end up finding every camp within Eastern Europe (with all of the prisoners and guards still present) if something were not to be done. As a result, by mid-January, theSS andNazi-controlled police units had begun forcing thousands of camp prisoners from Poland, East Prussia,Silesia and Pomerania to walk westward away from the advancing Red Army. Thedeath marches, which took place over hundreds of kilometers in sub-zero conditions without food and medicine, resulted in thousands of concentration camp prisoners andAllied POWs dying en route. It is estimated that in March and April 1945, at least 250,000 men and women were marched on foot to the heartland of Germany and Austria sometimes for weeks at a time.[35][36]
On 27 January, troops from Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front (322nd Rifle Division,60th Army)liberated theAuschwitz concentration camp. Despite attempts by retreating SS units to destroy parts of the camp, the Soviet forces still found graphic evidence of theHolocaust. The Soviets would also liberate camps such asPłaszów,Stutthof, andRavensbrück.
In anticipation of the approaching Red Army, the retreating Wehrmacht left parts of the German territory largely abandoned. With widespread unchecked chaos erupting, numerous reports of looting and attacks against ethnic Germans emerged. Nazi propaganda had furthermore demonized the Soviet Army so much that most Germans attempted to run.[37] Millions of ethnic German refugeesfled west, seeking relative safety in central or western Germany, or even in the custody of the Americans and British west of theRhine.[38]
The Vistula–Oder offensive was a major success for the Soviet military. Within a matter of days, the forces involved had advanced hundreds of kilometers, taking much of Poland and striking deep within the pre-war borders of the Reich. The offensive broke the back of Army Group A and much of Germany's remaining capacity for military resistance. However, the stubborn resistance of German forces in Silesia and Pomerania, as well as continuing fighting in East Prussia, meant that the final offensive towards Berlin was delayed by two months, by which time theWehrmacht had once again built up a substantial force on this axis.
On 31 January, the Soviet offensive was voluntarily halted, though Berlin was undefended and only approximately 70 km (43 mi) away from the Soviet bridgeheads across theOder river. After the war, a debate raged, mainly betweenVasily Chuikov and Georgy Zhukov, whether it was wise to stop the offensive. Chuikov argued Berlin should have been taken then, while Zhukov defended the decision to stop.
The operation was followed by a period of several weeks of mopping-up and consolidation on the part of the Red Army, along with ongoing hard fighting in pockets in the north. On 16 April, the Red Army jumped off from lines on theOder and Neisse Rivers, the opening phase of theBattle of Berlin, which proved to be the culminating offensive of the war on theEastern Front. The relatively rapid progress of this new offensive toward the German heartland seems to illustrate the cumulative extent of the erosion of theWehrmacht's capability to defend a broad front. Nevertheless, they remained dangerous opponents for some weeks longer, especially when allowed or forced to concentrate in limited areas.[citation needed]
Notes
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