On June 22, 1944, on the third anniversary of the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, the Red Army launched Operation Bagrationion against the German Army Group Center, which was entrenched in Belarus. This devastating blow crushed Army Group Center in World War I, with 550,000 German casualties and the remnants of the army withdrawing to East Prussia, and the Soviet Union finally liberating Belarus, which had been under siege for three years.
According to the instructions of Comrade Stalin, the leader of the CPSU, the Soviet army must completely liberate the territory of the Soviet Union by the end of 1944, and at this time, looking at the eastern battlefield, only the western border area of Ukraine, there are still 600,000 German troops, which are the German Army Group in Northern Ukraine.
Army Group North Ukraine is the former Army Group South, which has been beaten twice by the Soviet army since 1944, and the number of front-line troops is only 600,000, which has been forced to the Ukrainian-Polish border. Along with Operation Bagration, there was also the Soviet offensive in Ukraine. Half a month after the fierce battle in Belarus, Marshal Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front was ordered to attack, annihilate the German Army Group North Ukraine and liberate all of Ukraine.
This battle was the "Battle of Lviv-Sandomierz", the 6th "Stalin Assault" of the Soviet army against Germany.
Marshal Konev had just taken over the 1st Ukrainian Front from Zhukov and won a great victory in history, wiping out 200,000 German troops and withdrawing them from Ukraine. But what is less known is that at the beginning of the "Battle of Lviv-Sandomierz", the German armored forces successfully counterattacked the Soviet Guards, almost pushing the front back, leaving Konev in a cold sweat.
In Marshal Zhukov's memoirs, he bitterly criticized Konev's command errors in the war, and even thought that his misjudgment almost ruined the excellent situation in Ukraine.
As we all know, Since the defeat at the Battle of Korsk, Germany has not tasted a victory in Ukraine, but every major war has performed well. How did the German army perform in the Battle of Lviv-Sandomierz? What mistake did Marshal Konev make, and why was he caught by Zhukov?
In the summer of 1944, in just half a year, the German Army Group South had three commanders, namely Manstein, Modell, and Halpe.
Manstein was dismissed by the Nazi Fuehrer for his successive disobedience in the Battle of Korsson-Shepchenkowski and the Chernovice Offensive. His successor, Marshal Modell, who had the title of "Nazi firefighter," had just stepped down from his position as commander of Army Group North and was placed in the same tricky Army Group North Ukraine.
As a result, at the end of June 1944, Army Group Center was defeated in Operation Bagration, and Modell "put out the fire" again, parachuting into the Central Army Group to save the defeat, one person and two army group commanders.
By July, the 1st Ukrainian Front had begun to attack the Germans, and Modell was so distraught that he had to let his deputy, General Halpe, take over the hot potato, and the unfortunate Halpe was forced to start commanding a battle of disparity in strength.
At that time, the North Ukrainian Army Group also included the 4th Panzer Army, the 1st Panzer Army, and the Kempf Group, with more than 40 divisions, more than 600,000 people, nearly 1,000 tanks and destroyers, more than 6,000 artillery of various types, and 800 fighters.
Opposite it was the 1st Ukrainian Front, also known as the "Three Commanders", which were commanded by Marshal Zhukov after Vatutin's death, who was transferred to Belarus after the "Chernovitesk Offensive", and Marshal Konev took over the burden.
At this time, the 1st Ukrainian Front Army had 1.2 million people, 10 tank corps alone, more than 2,100 tanks and self-propelled guns, 3,000 fighters, and 13,000 guns of various types. To sum up, in the summer of 1944 in Ukraine, the number of Soviet troops was exactly double that of the Germans, and the equipment such as tanks and fighters was two or even three or four times better than that of the Germans, this advantage was almost crushing, even the "lion of defense" Modell himself, expressed despair of the situation of the German army.
The only thing the Germans could do in western Ukraine was to desperately repair fortifications and dig trenches, and the German idea was that if the Soviets broke through with armored troops, the Germans would kill and injure the Soviets with their backs to multi-layered and deep defensive positions, and fight and retreat, and finally the 10 integrated divisions of the battle reserve would carry out a counter-assault.
Fast forward to July 13, Konev ordered the troops to be sent, and the Soviet troops began to attack in two directions, above the Russian direction of Rawa and below the Lviv Line. Konev was confident, but the battle was not as smooth as expected.
Before the start of the war, Marshal Konev, in order to ensure the suddenness of the attack, specially arranged "suspicious soldiers" to confuse the Germans.
The 1st Ukrainian Front carried out a "camouflage assembly" in the southern part of the front, and the 18th Army and the 1st Guards Army deployed a large number of model tanks, artillery, cars, etc., pretending to attack the "Stanislav". The real main force, the 3rd Guards Army, the 13th, 37th, 38th, and 60th Armies, and the 1st, 3rd, and 4th Guards Tank Armies, were massed in the north to prepare to attack Rawa Russia and Lviv.
Opposite the Ukrainian 1st Front, the Germans built multiple lines of defense at a depth of 50 kilometers.
On 13 July, the first phase of the Soviet offensive began, with the bombardment of 10,000 artillery shells kicking off the offensive, and Katyusha rockets blew the German defense line into flames.
The Soviet offensive was a little different, this time Konev had the infantry as the main force of the attack, while the tank unit was followed by the results to expand the results, rather than to gnaw hard bones. This change was not decided by Konev, but came from the High Command. After all, in the previous battles, the casualties of the tank troops shocked the Soviet military high-level, even if the Soviet industry was developed, the tanks did not fall from the sky. Therefore, in order to ensure the combat effectiveness of the armored troops, the tank troops were forced to serve as the second echelon, and Konev could only comply.
On 14 July, the Russian direction of Rawa was progressing well, but the Soviet offensive in the direction of Lviv was counterattacked by the Germans, and the German 1st Panzer Division, the 8th Panzer Division, and the SS Galician Grenadier Division began to counterattack at 9 a.m. to replace the retreating infantry division.
The Soviet infantry was as crisp as paper in front of the German armored forces, and the German 1st Panzer Division began to counterattack on the morning of the 14th, and the 15th blocked the Soviet offensive, compressing the Soviet army into a narrow area, and some Soviet troops even began to retreat. The assault of the German panzer division was something that Konev had not expected, for in the pre-war reconnaissance only German infantry divisions were spotted in the direction of Lviv.
If the Lviv line failed, the Soviet offensive could have died. Konev immediately topped the 3rd Guards Tank Corps and ordered the 2nd Army of the Air Force to press the german tank units.
By this time the Soviet Union had air supremacy in Ukraine, and on the afternoon of July 15 alone, three German divisions were attacked by 2,000 Soviet sorties, and German tanks had to go into the forest to take shelter.
At this juncture of victory and defeat, the command of the German 8th Panzer Division was wrong, and the large troops did not follow the established route, but rushed on the road in order to shorten the time, and the whole division became a living target of the Soviet Air Force, half of the tanks were destroyed, and the casualties were heavy.
In terms of land warfare, although the German Tiger tanks and Leopard tanks were powerful, they were too small in number. Generally speaking, a German tank battalion has to face a division of the Soviet Army, dozens of Tiger tanks have to hit hundreds of T34s of the Soviet Army, the German army fights one less, and the Soviet tanks are continuous.
Surrounded by the Soviet Guards Tank Corps and the Air Force, the German 8th Panzer Division had to withdraw from the battle, and the remaining 1st Panzer Division also retreated, spitting out all the defending lines it had eaten within three days. On July 18, the Soviets penetrated the German lines and came to the city of Busk, where 50,000 German troops were trapped in the "Broad Encirclement", and Konev's hanging heart was released.
The Soviets immediately encircled and suppressed the Broad Encirclement, and by July 22, the organized German resistance had been completely eliminated, and less than half of the 50,000 German troops had escaped.
On 26 July, the city of Lviv was captured by the Soviets, and the first phase of the offensive was a great success. At this time in Belarus to the north, the Soviet army achieved a brilliant victory, and the Army Group Center collapsed. The High Command sent a telegram to the 1st Ukrainian Front to continue the second phase of the offensive, targeting the southern Polish city of Sandomierz.
On 29 July, the 1st Ukrainian Front continued its offensive and began to cross the Vivas River on 1 August, where the Soviets established a ferry crossing, known as the "Sandomierz Salient", and the Soviet-German contest was almost entirely around this part.
At this time, the German General Halpe had no cards to play, and could only apply for the transfer of troops from the country, and the Northern Ukrainian Army Group transferred 5 divisions from the country and 5 divisions from the South Ukrainian Army Group, all of which were put into the salient area. In this battle, the 501st Heavy Armor Battalion, an ace unit equipped with Tiger King tanks, joined the battle, which was tiger king's first large-scale frontal combat.
The Tiger King Tank was the ultimate German equipment of World War II, with an 88mm gun and a frontal armor thickness of 150mm, even the soviet Union's best IS-2 heavy tank could not penetrate the Tiger King on the front.
The German 16th Panzer Division cooperated with the 501st Heavy Battalion to attack the Soviet crossing, but the Soviet tank units had occupied the position early and waited for the rabbit. In the Battle of the Village of Ogled, the Soviets fought a beautiful ambush, destroying and capturing 24 German tanks, 10 of which were Tiger King tanks, and the commander of the German 501st Heavy Equipment Battalion, Regaide, was also killed on the spot.
After the German armored forces were defeated, Halpe returned to the sky and could only rely on the air force to hold on. In early August, the Germans sent 4,000 aircraft to attack the Soviet crossing, causing great damage to the Soviets.
According to the recollections of Soviet soldiers: German fighters were like a black cloud, pouring bombs on the ground, and tank soldiers had to abandon their tanks and hide in the trenches, watching german planes blow up their tanks. The Soviet Air Force and anti-aircraft artillery units fought the banks of the Vivas River, shooting down more than 500 German aircraft and protecting large troops from crossing the river.
The Soviet Air Force showed excellent qualities in this battle, because in the long battle, the Soviet Army has grown a group of excellent pilots. Unlike other battlefields, the Luftwaffe did rivet its strength in the Battle of Sandomierz, but it was still unable to defeat the Soviets.
In mid-August, the German army's living forces were almost depleted, and the large troops began to retreat. The Soviets captured Sandomierz on 16 August, and Marshal Konev sent a telegram to the High Command to apply for a commendation for the troops.
The Germans lost 150,000 troops at the Battle of Lviv-Sandomierz, of which 20,000 were captured. Nearly 2,000 tanks, destroyers, artillery and other weapons were lost, and 700 fighters were shot down. The Soviet casualties were not small, with a total of 300,000 casualties, more than 1,200 tanks and self-propelled guns destroyed, and 300 fighters shot down.
Strategically, the 6th Stalin Assault was a success, and from Lviv to Sandomierz, the Germans lost all their lands in western Ukraine. In this battle, 8 German divisions were annihilated, 10 divisions were crippled, and nearly 150,000 casualties were inflicted. On the Soviet side, the Ukrainian 1st Front suffered nearly 300,000 casualties, especially infantry casualties.
The Soviets won battles, but exchanges were not good, which was the norm on the Eastern Front, and the Soviets were accustomed to it.
But after the war, Marshal Zhukov recalled the battle and pointed at Konev directly, for the reason that the Soviet offensive was blocked on 14 July, a mistake that a senior commander should not have made.
Zhukov believed that Konev was not cautious enough in the first place, the pre-war reconnaissance of the German army was not in place, and he did not know the defensive configuration of the German army, so he directly threw a large number of troops into it, causing a large number of casualties among the infantry.
Secondly, a front of 1.2 million people fought, and Konev actually did not have a "headwind plan".
According to the situation on the Eastern Front at that time, the shortage of Soviet front-line troops was a common situation, and Zhukov suffered this loss in the "Chervitz Offensive", he warned Konev, but Konev did not care, and directly threw the infantry up to attack the sea of people. After the German counterattack was successful, Konev slowly moved his troops from behind, and the infantry line on the front line had suffered heavy casualties.
In the direction of Lviv, the history of the Lviv Line might have been rewritten had it not been for the mistakes of the Germans themselves and the 8th Panzer Division had been cut in half by the Soviet Air Force on the road.
In the end, Zhukov saw this as a fluke victory, and if the battle had broken out before 1943, facing the German army at its peak, the battle would probably have been lost and Konev would have been removed.
As for Konev himself, he mentioned this experience in his memoirs, but only mentioned that the German deployment was unexpected, and praised the level of German defense.
But it is undeniable that the "Battle of Lviv-Sandomierz" came to a thrilling end, and Konev also stabilized his position, and after the battle was fought, Comrade Stalin saw only the goal of "Berlin" in his eyes.
For Nazi Germany, the army that had retreated into Poland was reorganized, with more than 1 million German troops defending East Prussia and the Vistula River lines. At this time, the German army had no soldiers to use, the soldiers replenished from the rear were getting younger and younger, the combat effectiveness was getting worse and worse, and the gap with the Soviet army was constantly widening.
These combined factors doomed the Germans to defeat in the following "Battle of the Vistula-Oder" and the "Battle of East Prussia".
Text/Shogakuno
Resources: 1. "Hunting the Tiger King", Li Ming 2. "The Enmity and Grievances between Marshal Zhukov and Marshal Konev", Xu Longbin