![]() Rokossovsky’s 1st Belorussian Front’s drive west and Ivan Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front’s drive northwest had ended up bringing each Soviet Front into the path of the German armor grouping. The panzer divisions Parachute-Panzer Division Herman Goering, SS-Panzer Divisions Totenkopf and Wiking, and the 4th and 19th Panzer Divisions would end up decimating two of the Soviet 2nd Tank Army’s three tank corps in a span of just over two frenetic weeks of combat east and southeast of Warsaw. In spite of their individual weakness however these panzer divisions, when joined together, proved quite formidable. Nevertheless, in spite of such losses the Red Army's victory had come at a price in the form of hundreds of thousands of casualties, and immense quantities of lost war material.Ĭonsequently, as the Red Army penetrated into Eastern Poland and toward Warsaw its advance not only slowed but ran into a veritable roadblock in the form of hastily assembled German reserves, all of which would lead to one of the great tank showdowns of the war.įor late in July 1944 the Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky’s 1st Belorussian Front’s offensive had run into concentrated German counterattacks delivered by five half strength German panzer divisions. In particular the Red Army's Operation Bagration had virtually annihilated Army Group Center with Germany's one time premier Army Group losing 350,000 captured or killed in less than one month. This is all the more remarkable because by the final two weeks of July 1944 the Wehrmacht, and in particular Army Group's Center and North Ukraine had suffered the greatest defeats delivered against Nazi Germany's military during the Second World War. Alas, this would prove not to be true.Įven though much of the blame for the failure of the Polish Resistance to overcome their Nazi overlords must be placed at Stalin's feet (with his decision to not raise a finger to help the courageous resistance effort within Warsaw), there is another reason as well: the enduring strength, recuperative ability, and hitting power of the Wehrmacht. Late in July of 1944 and as the Red Army approached Warsaw's outskirts it must have seemed as if the Soviet war machine was unstoppable. As we approach the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising I thought it would be appropriate to set the stage for the brave but doomed efforts of the Polish Resistance to free their city from Nazi occupation.
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