After weeks of reversals and several false starts, June saw the start of the much awaited “operation Bagration”, the overwhelming Russian offensive designed to liberate mother Russia and push the Germans all the way back to Berlin.Early June went well for the red army, as the German forces in northern Russia were exhausted from their recent exertions to take Leningrad and to cut off Minsk. As the Russians attacked, Generaloberst Georg Lindemann was unable to respond, and he wept when his most prized gain, the city of Leningrad, was taken in less than a week by Zhukov’s unstoppable forces. The Russians poured into the city, while their tanks bypassed it, driving a salient into the German lines and reaching the Gulf of Finland.
Further south an overwhelming force slammed into army group centre, takinf Polotsk and driving south towards the beleaguered city of Minsk. Another offensive from Zhlobin pinned the defenders, and Model was obliged to withdraw east of the city to avoid encirclement. By the 15th of June the city was reached and the Russians had retaken a vast swathe of territory, infuriating the Fuehrer, who ordered its immediate recapture. His army however, was unable to immediately comply.
The Finns are stunned by the unprecedented effectiveness of the Russian infantry backed up by dominant armour and interdiction from air-strikes that had the German troops swept away like flies from a windscreen!
ReplyDeleteSuddenly the Gulf of Finland has a Russian shore!