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June 22nd, 1944, 70 years ago: Operation Bagration
 I don't have much to say about the anniversary of arguably the greatest strategic defeat suffered by Hitler in WWII. The start date of Operation Bagration, otherwise known as the Battle for Western Belorussia was in 1944 on this date. Starting then and ending in early August, the Soviet Red Army immolated 300,000 German soldiers and wiped 30 German divisions off the situation maps, taking advantage of a strategic deception that kept the bulk of Germany's hard experienced, mobile forces in the south to defend against what the German General Staff thought was Stalin's next move. When the offensive began, Hitler did Stalin a tremendous favor by tying German forces down to specific locations and forbidding local commanders from switching forces. This long-standing defensive practice of switching forces from one threatened sector to another, tying those forces to roads that were denied the Red Army, and refined by the German commander's experience in the field, could have slowed the Red Army down, but ultimately, it probably would not have yielded anything other than yet another tactical win, as the German Army was forced back into central Europe. For years during the Cold War we heard about the tremendous victory of the Red Army against the German Army. Soviet top commanders constantly celebrated this very day. But after the walls came tumbling down a truth emerged: the German Army also took a pretty good sized chunk out of the Red Army even with the strategic blunder committed by Hitler. The western Allies had opened the second front just a few weeks earlier, as the Red Army was planning its moves in the first front. Operation Bagration ultimately found the Red Army near the eastern border of Greater Germany, where they would remain until January 12th, 1945. --badanov Posted by: badanov 2014-06-22 |
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