Manstein skillfully extracted SS Viking and the remnants of seven other divisions from the Korsun-Shevchenkovski area of the lower Dnieper in mid-December 1943. Russian Generals, Vatutin and Koniev, turned their forces south on the 5th February 1944 and threatened the upper Dniester and the Carpathian mountains.
Hitler Dismisses von Manstein
Hitler summoned Feld Marshall von Manstein to the Obersalzberg on 25th March 1944 and accused him 'of wasting his forces and being responsible for the unfavourable situation in which the Army Group had landed.' Feld Marshalls Kleist and von Manstein were recalled to Berchtesgaden three days later and dismissed. Model was appointed in their stead.
Model and Bagration, the Russian Offensive
Soviet forces, after eight months of continuous movement since Kursk, in west Ukraine, had exhausted their momentum. Soviet forces prepared for a massive attack against the German centre which was to carry the Red Army to the banks of the Vistula. The Russian offensive commenced on the 22nd June two weeks after the D-Day offensive in the west and three years after Barbarossa. Bagration was mounted by 118 infantry and 43 tank divisions. Within one week, Army Group Centre had been forced out of its long prepared defences and was retreating across White Russia abandoning guns, vehicles, arms dumps and the wounded in its haste to reach the old defences of the Polish border.
Hitler survives Operation Valkure, 20th July 1944
The assassination attempt on Hitler, 20th July 1944, did not succeed because of the failure to destroy the telephone exchange at Rastenburg; the hesitation of the plotters in Bendlerstrasse; the failure to shoot Fromm and Remer and the failure to deploy the 'loyal' (i.e. disloyal) Berlin garrison immediately.
Eastern Europe Changes Hands
The collapse of the July 20th Plot confirms the German character - a reluctance to act against established authority. Guderian as Chief of the General Staff moved OKH HQ from Zossen to East Prussia. Small German units succeeded in holding their positions, confirming the Russian offensive had slowed down, while they were absorbed by their newly conquered territory. The tragedy of the Warsaw uprising unfolded and their desperate ten week battle in the streets remained unsupported by the Russians, on the east bank of the River Vistula, ensuring their defeat. The position of the London Poles was prejudiced. The Polish Home Army (AK) suffered from the vicious actions of the Russian Kaminski Brigade in Warsaw who abandoned all moral standards. General Guderian ordered Kaminski arrested and shot, the Kaminski Brigade was disbanded. The joint attitude of the Germans and Russians to Poland from 1939-1944 was much in evidence.
Germany, the Home Front
In August 1944 the munitions output of the Third Reich peaked, producing 869 tanks and 744 assault guns, enough to equip ten new Panzer divisions. Allied bombing had little effect on German heavy industry. In September 1944, the 9 SS and 11 SS Panzer divisions destroyed Mongomery's Arnhem River Rhine, bridge gamble. The British Airborne Division dropped 10,000 paratroopers near Arnhem, only 2,400 returned. The Ardennes offensive was illtimed, expecting the Russian Front in Poland and East Prussia to remain quiet throughout the autumn.
The Russian advance
Russian General Petrov's task was to advance into Hungary across the River Dniester. By September the German position in the Balkans was as close to disaster as it had been, during August, in France. When Russian Generals Malinovsky and Tolbukhin reached the Hungarian frontier the Allies had been defeated in Arnhem and Warsaw had been subdued. German General Friessner's forces held off Petrov's advance. Germany immediately formed all willing captured Russians into fighting divisions under General Vlasov, under Operation Skorpion. SS Viking Divisions, incorporating all foreign volunteers under arms bolstered German defences particularly during the inevitable Battle for Berlin.
The Red Army linked up with Tito in Belgrade. Thirty German Divisions were cut off uselessly in Memel and Kurland. Major Red Army formations were building up north of Warsaw, at the East Prussian border and in the Baranov bridgehead.
In Conclusion
General Guderian drove across Germanty in order to halt the costly Ardennes offensive. These reserves were needed to meet the expected Russian offensive on Berlin. The 1939 borders of the Reich remained largely intact. Germany prepared to defend Berlin.
Sources
- The World War 2 Bombing of Germany
- Operation Bagration, The Destruction of Army Group Centre by S. Zaloga, Osprey Military 1999
- Barbarossa, Alan Clark Macmillan & Co., 1991
- The Pianist, Szpilman During Warsaw Uprising
Michael Manning - ' The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity' W.B.Yeats
