[RedStar] 80th anniversary of the liberation of Western Ukraine from the horrors of fascism. The soldier's feat does not fade with the years.
by Georgy Shevergin
The Ministry of Defense has launched a new historical project with declassified archival documents on the preparation and conduct of the Lvov-Sandomierz strategic offensive operation.
LVOV DEATH CONVEYOR
On June 30, 1941, having broken into the city of Lvov, the German occupiers began to impose the so-called new order of unbridled robbery, violence, torture, and mass murder.
An investigation by the Extraordinary State Commission of the USSR established that the Gestapo detachments had lists of the most prominent representatives of the intelligentsia designated for extermination even before the capture of Lvov. In the first months of the occupation, the Germans killed over 70 prominent figures in science, technology, and art in Lvov.
In July 1941, the German military command created a concentration camp for prisoners of war in the center of Lvov, on the territory of a fortress called the Citadel. The camp premises were not heated. Tens of thousands of prisoners died from hunger, beatings, disease, and executions. It has been established that during the existence of this camp, more than 280,000 prisoners of war were held there, of whom over 140,000 died.
Another conveyor belt of death for the extermination of the civilian population was organized by the Nazi invaders in November 1941 on Yanovskaya Street in Lvov. The "SS forced labor camp" was fenced with barbed wire. The Germans drove civilians here. The prisoners were forced to perform backbreaking labor.
The occupiers sent anyone they considered guilty to them to death on the gallows or by execution. Brutal beatings of prisoners were considered the norm. People died in the hundreds from hunger and disease.
The Germans also carried out mass executions of civilians and prisoners of war in the Lisenitsky Forest, on the outskirts of Lvov. Over 200,000 people were shot here.
Slavuta, a once flourishing Ukrainian town, was turned into a central concentration camp with the arrival of the Nazi invaders. Over 120,000 Soviet citizens – prisoners of war and civilians – were killed, tortured and mutilated in the “Slavuta Grosslazaret” by the Nazis. Mass extermination of Soviet people was also carried out in other cities of the Lvov region. The declassified archival documents of the project serve as convincing evidence of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and their accomplices in the occupied territory.
COLLABORATORS – SS ACCOMPLICES
The occupiers created the "Galicia District" with its inclusion in the so-called General Governorate. The district consisted of the territories of the modern Lvov, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil regions. In March 1943, the "Manifesto to the Fighting Youth of Galicia" was published in the district newspapers under the signature of its head Otto Wächter. It stated that the Galician Ukrainians had been given a high honor for their loyalty to the Fuhrer and the Third Reich: they had been given the right to form a new SS division "Galicia".
Several tens of thousands of people wanted to serve as executioners of the Ukrainian people. Experienced punishers also joined the ranks of the SS, for example, from the 201st Schutzmannschaft Battalion, which had shed a lot of blood of Soviet patriots on the territory of Belarus. The 204th Police and SD Battalion, as well as a number of other units, were formed from those collaborators who did not make it into the division.
The text of the oath of the collaborators, who donned the SS uniform of "Galicia", stated: "I, a Ukrainian volunteer, by this oath voluntarily place myself at the disposal of the German Army. I swear to the German Leader and Supreme Commander of the German Army Adolf Hitler in unwavering loyalty and obedience."
Already at the formation stage, the division began to commit atrocities against the civilian population. On February 28, 1944, the 4th Police Regiment of the SS Division "Galicia" destroyed a thousand civilians in the Polish village of Guta Penyatskaya, located in the territory of today's Brody district of the Lvov region of Ukraine.
On June 25, 1944, the SS Galicia Division was transferred to Brody under the command of the 13th Army Corps. There it occupied the second line of defense, located 20 km from the front line.
During the Lvov-Sandomierz operation, 32 German divisions lost from 50 to 70 percent of their personnel, and eight divisions were completely destroyed.
ENCIRCLE AND DESTROY
On June 22, 1944, the Military Council of the 1st Ukrainian Front, commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Konev, submitted a plan for the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive operation to the Supreme Command Headquarters, which approved it.
The plan for the operation, the so-called sixth Stalinist strike, was to encircle and destroy the enemy’s Lvov-Brody grouping, take Lvov, cut Army Group Northern Ukraine apart, throw one part back to the Polesia region, the other to the Carpathians, and have the front’s main forces reach the Vistula River line.
Despite the Soviet offensive that had begun in Belarus, the German command expected the Red Army to advance in the Lvov direction. Therefore, it retained significant tank forces as part of Army Group Northern Ukraine.
However, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, fulfilling the plan of the Supreme Command Headquarters, broke through the enemy’s main line of defense. The tank armies and cavalry-mechanized groups brought into the battle began to cut off the enemy group's escape routes.
On July 15, the German command used Galicia to launch a counterattack on the advancing Soviet units. By the evening of the same day, the counteroffensive had petered out, and by July 18, Galicia, along with other German units, was surrounded.
"The enemy in the Lvov direction, stubbornly resisting with fire and counterattacks, retreated in the western direction. The encircled Brod grouping consisting of the 340th Infantry Division, 361st Infantry Division, 454th Security Division, 14th SS Infantry Division "Galichans", Corps Group "C" during July 20-22, 1944, which tried to break through in the area of Sasov, Bialy Kamen, was routed from encirclement by troops of the 4th Tank Army in a total of up to 15,000 people. The commander of the 454th Security Division, Major General Nedvig Johannes, was taken prisoner. A search was organized for the commander of the 13th Army Corps, Major General von Hoff," the archival document says.
"On July 27, the front's troops continued their offensive and advanced 20-35 km. "As a result of stubborn fighting, the cities of Lvov, Yaroslav, Przemysl, and up to 500 settlements were captured, including the cities of Przewursk, Turobin, Kalchuga, Prukhniki-Miasto, Khodorov, and Solotvina," noted the combat report of the 1st Ukrainian Front headquarters on July 28, 1944.
The 2nd and 8th Air Armies played an important role in the operation. From July 13 to August 29, 48,000 sorties were carried out. Having dropped 6,500 tons of bombs on the enemy and expended 3,300,000 shells and cartridges, the air units inflicted great losses on him in manpower and equipment, which contributed to an increase in the pace of the ground forces' offensive.
As a result of the Lvov-Sandomierz operation, Soviet troops completed the liberation of the entire territory of the Ukrainian SSR from German occupation within the 1941 borders. The result of Stalin's sixth strike was the almost complete defeat of Army Group "Northern Ukraine". The enemy was thrown back to the west more than 200 km. He lost about 90,000 soldiers and officers, a large amount of equipment and weapons. During the battles, 32 divisions of the German fascist troops, including the Ukrainian SS collaborationist division "Galicia", lost from 50 to 70 percent of their personnel, and eight divisions were completely destroyed.
HEROIC LIBERATORS OF WESTERN UKRAINE
During the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation, Soviet soldiers acted courageously and decisively, demonstrated heroism and military skill. One of the sections of the historical project contains several award sheets describing the exploits of military personnel. The presented reporting documents on the soldiers' exploits also contain dry statistical data on the number of enemy equipment destroyed.
On July 27, 1944, at 11 p.m., the city of Moscow saluted the valiant troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, who captured the city of Lvov - 20 artillery salvos from 224 guns.
For high military skill and heroism, 353 formations and units of the 1st Ukrainian Front were awarded orders, 246 received the honorary titles of Lvov, Vistula, Sandomierz, Stanislav and others. More than 123,000 soldiers were awarded orders and medals, 160 people were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.