User:Habap/World War II/1944 Eastern Front
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[edit] Soviet winter and spring offensives
In the northwest, a Soviet offensive in January 1944 had relieved the siege of Leningrad. The Germans conducted an orderly retreat from the Leningrad area to a shorter line based on the lakes to the south.
In the south, in March, two Soviet formations encircled Generaloberst Hans-Valentin Hube's First Panzer Army north of the Dniestr river. The Germans escaped the pocket in April, saving most of their men but losing their heavy equipment.
In early May, the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front engaged German Seventeenth Army of Army Group South which had been left behind after the German retreat from the Ukraine. The battle was a complete victory for the Red Army, and a botched evacuation effort across the Black Sea led to over 250,000 German and Romanian casualties.
During April 1944, a series of attacks by the Red Army near the city of Iaşi, Romania, aimed at capturing the strategically important sector. The German-Romanian forces successfully defended the sector throughout the month of April. The attack at Târgul Frumos was the final attempt by the Red Army to achieve its goal of having a springboard into Romania for a summer offensive.
With Soviet forces approaching, German troops occupied Hungary on March 20. Hitler thought that Hungarian leader Admiral Miklós Horthy might no longer be a reliable ally.
Finland sought a separate peace with Stalin in February 1944, but would not accept the initial terms offered. On June 9, the Soviet Union began the Fourth strategic offensive on the Karelian Isthmus that, after three months, forced Finland to accept an armistice.
[edit] Soviet summer offensive
Operation Bagration, a Soviet offensive involving 2.5 million men and 6,000 tanks, was launched on June 22, 1944. Its objective was to clear German troops from Belarus. The subsequent battle resulted in the destruction of German Army Group Centre and over 800,000 German casualties, the greatest defeat for the Wehrmacht during the war. The Soviets swept forward, reaching the outskirts of Warsaw on July 31.
[edit] Warsaw Uprising
The proximity of the Red Army led the Poles in Warsaw to believe they would soon be liberated. On August 1, they revolted as part of the wider Operation Tempest. Nearly 40,000 Polish resistance fighters seized control of the city. The Soviets, however, did not advance any further. [1] The only assistance given to the Poles was artillery fire, as German army units moved into the city to put down the revolt. The resistance ended on October 2. German units then destroyed most of what was left of the city.
[edit] Soviet autumn and winter offensives
After the destruction of Army Group Center, the Soviets attacked German forces in the south in mid-July 1944, and in a month's time they cleared Ukraine of German presence.
The Red Army's 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts engaged German Heeresgruppe Südukraine, which consisted of German and Romanian formations, in an operation to occupy Romania and destroy the German formations in the sector. The result of the battle was complete victory for the Red Army, and a switch of Romania from the Axis to the Allied camp.
In October 1944, General der Artillerie Maximilian Fretter-Pico's Sixth Army encircled and destroyed three corps of Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky's Group Pliyev near Debrecen, Hungary. This was to be the last German victory in the Eastern front.
The Red Army's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Baltic Fronts engaged German Army Group Center and Army Group North to capture the Baltic region from the Germans. The result of the series of battles was a permanent loss of contact between Army Groups North and Centre, and the creation of the Courland Pocket in Latvia. From December 29, 1944, to February 13, 1945, Soviet forces laid siege to Budapest, which was defended by German Waffen-SS and Hungarian forces. It was one of the bloodiest sieges of the war.
