The most calamitous German WWII defeat

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   Operation Bagration: The most calamitous German WW11 defeat 

Operation Bagration: Soviet Offensive of 1944 » HistoryNet - From the World\'s Largest History Magazine Publisher 

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Geographically, it dwarfed the campaign for Normandy. In four weeks, it inflicted greater losses on the German army than the Wehrmacht had suffered in five months at Stalingrad. With more than 2.3 million men, six times the artillery and twice the number of tanks that launched the Battle of the Bulge, it was the largest Allied operation of World War II. It demolished three Axis armies and tore open the Eastern Front...

the Red Army assembled 118 rifle divisions, eight tank and mechanized corps, 13 artillery divisions and six cavalry divisions, a total of approximately 2.3 million frontline and support troops. The attack would be led by the rifle and tank divisions, which collectively fielded 2,715 tanks and 1,355 assault guns. To feed the offensive, the Red Army stockpiled 1.2 million tons of ammunition, rations and supplies behind the front lines. 

The assaulting troops would be supported on the ground by 10,563 heavy artillery pieces and 2,306 Katyusha multiple rocket launchers, nicknamed “Stalin’s Organ” because of their pipe-organ appearance. Air cover would be provided by 2,318 fighters of various types, 1,744 Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik ground-attack planes, 655 medium bombers and 431 night bombers; another 1,007 medium bombers would be drawn from the Soviet strategic bomber reserve. The code name selected for the operation referred to General Piotr Bagration, the fiery Russian prince who died fighting Napoleon at Borodino in 1812...

Originally timed for June 14, 1944, the operation’s start was delayed by Soviet rail congestion until June 22, 1944 — three years to the day from the Nazi invasion of Soviet territory. The offensive opened at 5 a.m. with a massive artillery bombardment. Each of the thousands of guns along the line was allotted roughly 6 tons of ammunition to fire during a two-hour barrage. The shelling was conducted in a rolling manner so as to destroy the Wehrmacht’s forward trenches and pillboxes, then catch retreating soldiers in the open before they could reach the safety of their intermediate lines. The less precise Katyusha batteries showered artillery targets with 82mm and 132mm rockets to ensure that nothing remained alive in the forward zone. Shocked German survivors described this barrage as the most intense and destructive they had ever witnessed...

All told, Operation Bagration cost Hitler 350,000 men (including 31 generals), plus hundreds of tanks and more than 1,300 guns. Of the men lost, 160,000 were taken prisoner, half of whom were murdered on the way to prison camps or died in Soviet gulags. In a throwback to ancient times, 57,000 German prisoners taken from pockets east of the Berezina were shipped to Moscow and paraded before Muscovites on July 17, partly to refute Nazi claims of a “planned withdrawal” from Belorussia, and partly to rebut suggestions by Western newspapers that the operation had been made easy because large numbers of German troops had been tied down in western France. 

During their 400-mile drive from Vitebsk to Warsaw’s outskirts, the Soviets lost some 765,000 troops, of which 178,000 were either killed or missing, plus 2,857 tanks and assault guns, and 2,447 artillery pieces. Despite those losses the Red Army launched a follow-up campaign in northern Ukraine, the Lwow-Sandomierz offensive, employing more than 1 million men, 1,600 tanks and assault guns, 14,000 artillery pieces and mortars, and 2,800 combat aircraft. The offensive, launched on July 13, smashed Army Group North Ukraine, which had released units to help stop the collapse of Army Group Center. 

By early August, the German Fourth Army and almost all of the Ninth and Third Panzer armies were gone. Thirty German divisions disappeared, and nearly 30 more were crippled. The Red Army was within striking distance of the Vistula and had reached the outskirts of Warsaw. By mid-August, Red Army soldiers were entrenched on Prussian soil, only 350 miles from Berlin, and Romania, with its vital oil fields, was poised to desert the Axis cause. Until January, however, the exhausted Soviet giant would remain relatively quiet, refitting and re-equipping for the final push from the Vistula to Berlin.

Many German and Soviet accounts agree that Operation Bagration was Hitler’s worst military setback of the war. But the offensive lacked a single, dramatic focal point, such as at Stalingrad, and the commanders and place names sound strange to Western ears. For those reasons, the operation was never acknowledged in the West to the same degree as any number of smaller campaigns — such as Overlord, the Ardennes Offensive, the Torch landings in Africa or Operation Husky in Sicily. Given the massive waves of soldiers and tanks that Stalin mustered for the offensive and marked improvements in Soviet war-fighting capabilities — Stavka’s successful deception campaign, the effective use of partisans, improved infantry-armor tactics and superior weaponry such as the Shturmovik ground-attack plane and the T-34 medium tank — it is an unfortunate omission. Nevertheless, Bagration, combined with the Lwow-Sandomierz offensive in the Ukraine, dramatically turned the tide of war against the Third Reich. 
Operation Bagration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

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This action resulted in the almost complete destruction of the German Army Group Centre and three of its component armies: Fourth Army, Third Panzer Army and Ninth Army. The operation "was the most calamitous defeat of all the German armed forces in World War II"...

Bagration, in combination with the neighbouring Lvov-Sandomierz Operation launched a few weeks later in Ukraine, allowed the Soviet Union to recapture practically all the territories within its 1941 borders, advance into German East Prussia, and reach the outskirts of Warsaw after gaining control of Poland east of the Vistula river...

Compared to other battles, this was by far the greatest Soviet victory in numerical terms. The Red Army inflicted nearly four times as many losses on the Germans as they sustained, and liberated a vast amount of Soviet territory (whose population had suffered greatly under the brutal German occupation; the advancing Soviets found cities destroyed, villages depopulated, and much of the population killed or deported by the occupiers) in a span of 2 months. In order to show the outside world the magnitude of the victory, some 50,000 German prisoners, taken from the encirclement east of Minsk, were paraded through Moscow: even marching quickly and twenty abreast, they took three hours to pass.[8] In a symbolic gesture the streets were washed down afterwards.

The German army never recovered from the matériel and manpower losses sustained during this time, having lost about a quarter of its Eastern Front manpower, similar to the percentage lost at Stalingrad (about 20 full divisions). These losses included many experienced troops, NCOs and officers, which at this stage of the war the Wehrmacht could not replace. The operation was notable for the number of German generals also lost: 9 were killed, including 2 corps commanders; 22 captured, including 4 corps commanders; Major-General Hahn, commander of 197th Infantry Division disappeared on 24 June, while Lieutenant-Generals Zutavern and Philipp of 18th Panzergrenadier and 134th Infantry Divisions committed suicide.

Overall the near-total annihilation of Army Group Centre cost the Germans 2,000 tanks and 57,000 other vehicles. According to Steven Zaloga, German losses are estimated at 300,000 dead, 250,000 wounded, and about 120,000 captured (overall casualties at 670,000); Soviet losses were also substantial, with 60,000 killed, 110,000 wounded, and about 8,000 missing, with 2,957 tanks, 2,447 artillery pieces, and 822 aircraft also lost.[9]

The offensive cut off Army Group North and Army Group North Ukraine from each other, and weakened them as resources were diverted to the central sector. This forced both Army Groups to withdraw from Soviet territory much more quickly when faced with the following Soviet offensives in their sectors.

The final destruction of much of Army Group Centre around Minsk coincided with the destruction of many of the German army's strongest units in France in the Falaise pocket. On both eastern and western fronts, the subsequent Allied exploitation was slowed and halted by supply problems rather than German resistance. However, the Germans were able to transfer armoured units from the Italian front, where they could afford to give ground, to resist the Soviet advance near Warsaw. 