| Vitebsk–Orsha offensive | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofOperation Bagration | |||||||
 | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Germany |  Soviet Union | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Georg-Hans Reinhardt (Third Panzer Army) Kurt von Tippelskirch (Fourth Army) Alfons Hitter  (206th Division) | Ivan Bagramyan (1st Baltic Front) Ivan Chernyakhovsky (3rd Belorussian Front) | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 165,000 men | 359,000 men | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 41,700 killed 126 tanks and assault guns destroyed 1,840 motor vehicles 17,800 taken prisoner [citation needed] | 11,014 killed 318 tanks destroyed 113 aircraft shot down [citation needed] | ||||||
 | |||||||
TheVitebsk–Orsha offensive (Russian:Витебско-Оршанская наступательная операция) was part of the Belorussian strategic offensive of theRed Army in summer 1944, commonly known asOperation Bagration. During the offensive, Soviet troops capturedVitebsk andOrsha. A Soviet breakthrough during the offensive helped achieve the encirclement of German troops in the subsequentMinsk offensive.
The immediate goals of the Soviet offensive were:
Soviet intelligence had revealed the depth of the German defences on theMoscow–Minsk highway nearOrsha. As a result, the attack ofGalitsky's11th Guards Army in this sector was to be preceded by specialised engineer units;mine rollingPT-34 tanks of the 116th Separate Engineering Tank Regiment were committed along with assault engineer companies andassault gun regiments in several waves against the fortified and mined positions of the78th Sturm Division.
The cities ofVitebsk andOrsha had been declaredFester Platz – fortified towns to be held at all costs – under the command of Gollwitzer (Vitebsk) and General Traut of the XXVII Corps's78th Sturm Division (Orsha).
The above units were under the overall command ofArmy Group Centre (Field-MarshalErnst Busch).
MarshalAleksandr Vasilevsky was appointed to coordinate the operations of the two Fronts involved.
Army Group Centre's northern flank was defended by theThird Panzer Army under the command ofGeorg-Hans Reinhardt; the lines ran through marshy terrain in the north, through asalient round the city ofVitebsk, to a sector north of the mainMoscow–Minsk road, held by theFourth Army. It was opposed by the1st Baltic Front ofHovhannes Bagramyan, andChernyakhovsky's3rd Belorussian Front, who were given the task of breaking through the defences to the north and south ofVitebsk and cutting off the salient.
It was in this sector that Soviet forces had their greatest initial gains. The Soviet43rd Army broke the defences of the GermanIX Corps, to the north ofVitebsk, within hours, pushing towards theDvina river. South of the city, theVI Corps'299th and197th Infantry Divisions were overrun and consumed by an overwhelming Soviet assault, with a particularly effective breakthrough by the5th Army at the junction of the 299th and256th Infantry Divisions' sectors.[1] By 24 June, the German position in Vitebsk itself, held by the centralLIII Corps of four divisions, was already serious, as Soviet forces were clearly intending to encircle the city, but no reserves were available to shore up the collapsing defences, and requests to withdraw German troops to the second defense lines, the 'Tiger' line, were denied by theOberkommando des Heeres.
By 25 JuneThird Panzer Army was disintegrating. In the north, IX Corps had been broken and pushed over theDvina, blowing the bridges during its retreat. In the south much of the VI Corps had been annihilated, and its southernmost divisions (the299th and256th Infantry Divisions) had become separated from the remainder of Third Panzer Army by heavy attacks aroundBogushevsk, where they attempted to make a final stand in the 'Hessen' line, the third defence zone. The Soviet 43rd and39th Armies were now converging behind Vitebsk, trapping the entire LIII Corps. LIII Corps's commander,Friedrich Gollwitzer, had transferred the4th Luftwaffe Field Division south-west of the city in order to spearhead a breakout, while the246th Infantry Division attempted to hold open the Dvina crossings.OKH however, denied all requests for complete evacuation: the206th Infantry Division was ordered to stay in the city and fight to the last man.[2]
Soviet plans in this sector met with overwhelming success. The 4th Luftwaffe Field Division was cut off and destroyed by the 39th Army on the evening of 25 June, and by the next day the 246th Infantry and6th Luftwaffe Field Divisions, fighting their way along the road from Vitebsk, had also been encircled.Hitler insisted that a staff officer be parachuted into Vitebsk to remind Gollwitzer that the trapped 206th Infantry Division should not withdraw;Third Panzer Army's commander, Reinhardt, was only able to get this decision reversed by insisting on being parachuted in himself if Hitler continued to order it.[3] By the evening Soviet forces were fighting their way into the city and Gollwitzer finally ordered the garrison to withdraw too, in defiance of theSupreme High Command of the German Army orders.
By 27 June LIII Corps had been dispersed, its 30,000 men being almost all killed or taken prisoner; a group of several thousand from the 4th Luftwaffe Field Division initially managed to break out, but was liquidated in the forests west of Vitebsk.[4] The remnants of IX Corps were retreating to the west, falling back onPolotsk with the6th Guards Army in pursuit: VI Corps was also largely destroyed.Third Panzer Army had been effectively shattered within days, andVitebsk liberated: even more significantly, a huge gap had been torn in the German lines to the north of Fourth Army in the former VI Corps sector.
The central sector of Soviet operations was against the long front ofFourth Army, which was under the overall command ofKurt von Tippelskirch. Soviet plans envisaged the bulk of it, theXXXIX Panzer Corps andXII Corps, being encircled while pinned down by attacks from the2nd Belorussian Front in the parallelMogilev offensive operation. By far the most important Soviet objective, however, was immediately to the north: the mainMoscow–Minsk road and the town ofOrsha, which the southern wing ofChernyakhovsky's3rd Belorussian Front was ordered to take. A breakthrough in this area, against GeneralPaul Völckers'XXVII Corps, would form the northern 'pincer' of the encirclement aimed at destroying Fourth Army. The Minsk road was protected by extensive defensive works manned by the78th Sturm Division, a specially reinforced unit with extra artillery andassault gun support. Orsha itself had been designated aFester Platz or strongpoint under 78th Sturm Division's commander, with the25th Panzergrenadier Division holding the lines to the south. As a result of the strong defenses in this sector, Soviet plans included the commitment of heavily armed engineer units to assist in a breakthrough.
Galitsky's11th Guards Army attacked towards Orsha on 23 June but initially made little headway. By the next day, the Soviet1st Guards Rifle Division was able to break through the German lines in a marshy, thinly-held area to the north of the 78th Sturm Division, which was ordered back to the 'Hessen' line, the third defence zone. It was now struggling to maintain contact with the 25th Panzergrenadier Division to the south. Chernyakhovsky, encouraged by the 1st Guards Rifle Division's progress, pushed a mixed cavalry / mechanised exploitation force into the breach in the German lines. On 25 June, the German defences began to rupture; a counter-attack atOrekhovsk failed.[5]
Völckers's position was further threatened by the near-collapse of the Third Panzer Army's VI Corps, immediately to the north. At 11:20 on 25 June the VI Corps, which had been cut off from its parent formation, was reassigned to Fourth Army.[6] Part of its reserve, the14th Infantry Division, was brought up to try to slow the Soviet advance north of Orsha. By midnight, however, the 11th Guards Army had shattered the remnant of VI Corps in the 'Hessen' line, and the 78th Sturm Division's situation was becoming untenable: 26 June saw the German forces in retreat. Soviet tank forces of the2nd Guards Tank Corps were able to push up the road towardsMinsk at speed, with a subsidiary force breaking off to encircle Orsha, which was liberated on the evening of 26 June. The main exploitation force,Pavel Rotmistrov's5th Guards Tank Army, was then committed through the gap torn in the German lines. VI Corps finally crumbled completely, its rear elements falling back towardsBorisov in disarray: its commander, GeneralGeorg Pfeiffer, was killed on 28 June after losing contact with his divisions. Völckers was ordered to hold fast, but lacked the necessary resources despite shifting his260th Infantry Division northwards and moving the286th Security Division into the lines.[7]
The operation effectively ceased with the arrival of 5th Guards Tank Army's forward units at theBerezina on 28 June.
In terms of its objectives within the broader structure ofOperation Bagration, the offensive was a complete success:
