Duffy Christopher. Red Storm On The Reich (ENG)

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2. Formations on the Eastern Front, early January 1945

GHQ of the Supreme Command [i.e. STAVKA] have de-

cided to complete preparations at a rapid rate and, regardless

of weather, to launch large-scale offensive operations along

the entire Central Front not later than the second half of

January. Rest assured we shall do all in our power to support

the valiant forces of our Allies. (Larionov, et al., 1984, 373)

The episode is a little puzzling. The German offensive in the

Ardennes had long spent its force, and its successor in Lorraine

(Operation Nordwind) was a small affair. Probably, Stalin

agreed so readily to shorten his timetables because the Allied

leaders were due to confer in February at Yalta, and he wished

to make sure that he had Poland in his pocket and that the

Soviet forces were well advanced on the way to Berlin. This

would lodge the Red Army deep in Central Europe, and give

the Soviet Union an important role in ordering the world after

the war.

The Russians rescheduled the offensive as a sequence of stag-

gered blows on widely separated theatres, so as to keep the

Germans off balance. Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front was to take

the lead on 12 January. Up in northernmost East Prussia the

3rd Belorussian Front (Chernyakovskii) was to attack on the

thirteenth. Last of all on the fourteenth the Germans in northern

Poland and southern East Prussia were going to be hit by the

1st Belorussian Front (Zhukov) and the 2nd Belorussian Front

(Rokossovskii) at the same time.

Preparations for the Vistula-Oder Operation

in Detail

The theatre of operations which lay in front of Konev and Zhu-

kov was a plain which measured five hundred kilometres in

breadth and more than five hundred in depth, and extended

from the Vistula to beyond the Oder—in other words across

western Poland to the regions of Silesia and Brandenburg in

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Germany. The conditions in general favored fast-moving of-

fensive action, for the earth was like iron under a thin blanket

of snow, the rivers and canals were frozen and the terrain was

flat and open, apart from the hilly region of the Lisaya Gora

north of Kielce and a dense old forest along the Pilica. Through-

out the operation one of the first priorities for the Russians was

to keep their armoured spearheads on the move, thrusting

around Kielce and the other cities, and rushing the passages

over the Pilica, Radomka and Nida rivers before the Germans

could utilise them as defensive lines.

The shape of the joint offensive was conditioned by the three

bridgeheads which the Russians had won on the far side of the

Vistula in central Poland in the late summer of 1944, namely:

• The extensive Sandomierz (Baranow) bridgehead on the sec-

tor of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

• The smaller Pulawy and Magnuszew bridgeheads on that of

the 1st Belorussian Front.

The Germans held the river bank between these three isolated

bridgeheads, and to have attacked them on these sectors would

have involved the Russians in making assault crossings of the

Vistula, a barrier which was about one kilometre wide. Essen-

tially, therefore, the Vistula-Oder Operation was developed

from the three bridgeheads. Only after the offensive had

opened was the Forty-Seventh Army on Zhukov's far right to

cross the river below Warsaw. Another general feature of the

operation was its north-westerly trend, which drew the spear-

heads away from the most direct routes to the Reich but carried

them around the northern flanks of some awkward strong-

points and built-up areas.

The Sandomierz bridgehead measured seventy-five kilo-

metres in breadth along the Vistula and nearly sixty kilometres

in depth. It was by far the largest of the bridgeheads over the

Vistula, but it was packed almost to bursting point with about

90 per cent of the forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front, comprising

CHRISTOPHER DUFFY

five complete all-arms armies and both the tank armies. Konev

planned to make his breakthrough on a frontage of thirty-nine

kilometres and exploit along two axes in particular—that of

Rybalko's Third Guards Tank Army in the south (which was

going to swing by way of Radomsko and around the north of

the Upper Silesian Industrial Region), and that of Lelyu-

shenko's Fourth Tank Army in the north (ordered to cooperate

with the southern flank of Zhukov's Front in a pincer movement

against the German forces in the region of Kielce and Radom).

The Pulawy bridgehead on Zhukov's left was the smallest of

the three bridgeheads under consideration, and it had room

for only two of the all-arms armies. Here the role assigned to

full tank armies in the other bridgeheads was assumed by two

tank corps (the IX and XI), which were to assist the 1st Ukrain-

ian Front to destroy the German Kielce-Radom group of forces

in the way already indicated.

Zhukov's main strength was concentrated in and near the

larger Magnuszew bridgehead. It was deep (up to twenty-three

kilometres) but narrow (about twenty), which produced a stack-

ing-up effect of two all-arms armies, part of a third which was

deployed astride the Vistula, and two tank armies standing

close behind in the right bank.

In detail the planned offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front

consisted of multiple thrusts, as on Konev's Front, and again

the two component tank armies were expected to take the lead

in the exploitation phase. On the left flank the First Guards

Tank Army was going to advance west-north-west on the Lodz-

Posen axis, while on the right flank the Second Guards Tank

Army turned Warsaw from the south and advanced roughly

parallel with the Vistula, following the north-west trend of that

river downstream from the Polish capital—this axis would take

the army through the area of Bromberg, near where the Vistula

turned sharply to the north-east.

On both Fronts the detailed planning did not extend beyond

the first few days, and the initial objectives seem to have fol-

lowed a line which stretched roughly from Czestochowa

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through Posen to Bromberg. The offensive was hurriedly des-

ignated the 'Vistula-Oder Operation' only after the Soviet forces

had outrun the original phase lines and were well on their way

to the Reich and the Oder.

A degree of the unexpected is of great help in all military

operations, and surprise was particularly important for the suc-

cess of the Soviet offensives in the later stages of the Great

Patriotic War, when frontages were cramped by the narrowing

of the great European peninsula. By now the Russians had

brought the appropriate techniques of Maskirovka (loosely trans-

lated as 'deception') to a fine art. Both of the Fronts instituted

measures of Maskirovka, and they included variations of hoary

old ruses which are part of the basic vocabulary of war.

By night, under the cover of darkness, units were moved up

bit by bit to their genuine deployment areas, avoiding popu-

lated localities, while a show of activity was kept up in other

sectors through ostentatious road and radio traffic and by warn-

ing householders that they were about to be turned out of their

accommodation to make way for troops. Security was observed

on a strict 'need to know' principle—regimental commanders

were not aware of the task of their parent division; company

and platoon commanders were left in ignorance of the regi-

mental mission; the ordinary soldiers were told that the offen-

sive was due to begin only one, two or three hours before it

started.

Probably the great single effort of Maskirovka went into build-

ing up dummy forces on the sector of the Sixtieth Army, which

was on the far left of Konev's Front and to the south of the

upper Vistula. Colonel Samoilov and his parties of engineers

and infantrymen set to work on 21 December, and they soon

finished building mock-ups of 320 T-34s, 250 other vehicles and

600 artillery pieces. With the help of the IV Guards Tank Corps,

which made a short visit from the area of the Sandomierz

bridgehead, these fraudulent articles were deployed for the

benefit of the Germans early in January. The guiding principle

was to keep the items well concealed, but not too well concealed.

CHRISTOPHER DUFFY

The standard dummy of the T-34 was a well-tried design made

of wire and sacking, but care was taken to site more accurate

models at important points. Further dummies were cranked up

and down by ropes and windlasses, and a few specimens of

the genuine article cruised around to lend an air of verisimili-

tude.

The Germans were almost completely taken in. Their intel-

ligence firmly located that IV Guards Tank Corps in the area

of the Sixtieth Army, and they feared a major thrust in the

direction of Krakow. On a larger scale the Germans gravely

underestimated the genuine concentrations of force which

faced them in the three bridgeheads, and they missed the move-

ment of nine full armies and a tank corps which arrived to take

part in the central Polish offensive from STAVKA's reserve,

where they had been standing at the immediate disposal of

Stalin. The STAVKA reserve (RVGK) included all the tank ar-

mies, and had become 'the principal source of the forces needed

to create powerful strike groupings at the most important axes

at crucial times' (Dick, 1990, 108).

The logistic preparations were very thorough. Both Fronts

were well stocked with supplies when the offensive began, and

the example of Zhukov's army group indicates the kind of quan-

tities involved. Ammunition was given top priority, but the 1st

Belorussian Front also had to provide fuel for its 2,000-odd tanks

and assault guns, 7,000 trucks, 3,000 heavy artillery tractors

and 2,500 supporting aircraft, as well as a daily consumption

of 1,500 tons of bread and 220 tons of meat. The dumps were

filled with the help of 1,200 trains (with 68,000 individual wag-

gon-loads), and thousands of trucks were overhauled to carry

the supplies beyond the railheads.

The railway tracks through eastern Poland had been widened

to the Russian gauge, which was a heroic undertaking in itself,

and it was particularly difficult to transport the supplies on the

final stage across the Vistula to the bridgeheads, for the bridges

had only just been built by the Russian military engineers, and

they were few and not especially strong. In December the water

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level rose and burst the ice, revealing that the Vistula was a

treacherous river: 'It carries ice not only on the surface, but on

the bottom too. Ramming the bridge piles the floes form in-

visible dams, and then the force of the current builds up and

washes away the banks and the river-bed around the piles'

(Chuikov, 1978, 79). The Russians ended up by towing the floes

away by tractor, smashing them with explosive charges or bom-

barding them with batteries of 120-mm mortars.

The Soviets had reached the far side of the Vistula in July

and August 1944, and although the bridgeheads contracted

somewhat under German pressure in the weeks immediately

following, the enemy effort fell away in September and the

Russians were left with almost four clear months to prepare for

their next offensive. This was a long period of grace, and they

turned it to good account.

Now that they were fighting on foreign soil, the Russians

had no network of agents in place behind enemy lines, and

they had to put an intensive effort into building up a detailed

intelligence picture of German defences, deployments and

movements. Surveillance in depth was carried out by scouting

patrols (ancestors of the S^petsnaz) and by reconnaissance aircraft

which ranged as far as five hundred kilometres in the German

rear, as well as making repeated photographic sorties over the

forward positions.

Marshal Konev (perhaps seeking to establish his credentials

as a fighting soldier) claims that he did not consider it below

his dignity to reconnoitre the terrain in person, crawling about

on all fours:

Some theoreticians are inclined to overestimate the oper-

ational art and hold that the rough work on the spot is, so

to speak, the business of the lower commanders, not the

operational planners. My opinion, however, is that thorough

preparation on the spot and the subsequent practi-

cal realisation of the theoretical postulates go very well

together. (Konev, 1969, 9)

CHRISTOPHER DUFFY

The main Russian ground forces kept the German lines under

constant surveillance, and occasionally mounted reconnais-

sances in some force. Late in November Colonel Antonov was

ordered to probe with his division in the direction of Warsaw:

It was a clear and frosty day. We followed the road as it

led westwards across a plain with scattered woodlands, and

it brought us to the neighbourhood of Praga, a suburb of

Warsaw. In front of us there was a heap of ruins, and from

the summit it was possible to take in the surroundings—the

terrain to the south of Praga was open and flat, but to the

north and east extended the dark woods of the Vistula valley.

Through binoculars you could make out the smoking ruins

of Warsaw. Bodies were littered on the western side of the

Vistula, and along the river bank itself—some of them were

in civilian clothing and some in uniforms. The skeletons of

blocks of buildings were outlined in a dismal way against the

background of smoke. We were stunned by this dreadful

sight. (Antonov, 1975, 181)

From Antonov's report Zhukov concluded that it was impos-

sible to send the Fifth Shock Army in a direct cross-river assault

against Warsaw.

The Russians incorporated the findings of the reconnais-

sances in the detailed operational and tactical plans, which were

in turn tested and rehearsed in war games and briefings that

were held at every level down to the regiment. A number of

these sessions extended over several days, and they turned out

to be particularly useful for uncovering hidden snags and for

perfecting liaison between the different arms of the service.

The final details and the fundamental principles were

rammed home by the Front commanders in the days imme-

diately before the offensive. Amazasp Khachaturovich Babad-

zhanyan was commander of the IX Guards Tank Corps, and he

was summoned with the other tank and mechanised corps com-

manders to a briefing which had been organised by Zhukov:

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I must say that the reports concerning Zhukov's bad tem-

per were not without foundation. But it would be untrue to

say that he was gratuitously boorish, or that he insulted the

dignity of his subordinates. The qualities that appealed to

him in his officers were courage and activity, energy and

daring.

This was not known to Babadzhanyan at the time, and it was

with some trepidation that he, as a mere colonel, made his

report to Zhukov, who was seated among the generals. Zhukov

satisfied himself as to the state of readiness of the corps, and

then he suddenly changed tack:

'There are two kinds of men—the ones who dream of ex-

piring in bed surrounded by their friends and relations, and

the others who prefer to die on the field of battle. To which

category do you belong?'

'To the second, naturally.'

'I did not expect any other answer.'

Zhukov went on to outline the task of the tank formations:

'The tank forces must cleave through the enemy defences,

and strive to penetrate to the greatest possible depth in the

enemy rear. They must spread panic and confusion. Don't

allow the enemy to establish themselves on defensive lines

or create new centres of resistance. Press on regardless!' (Ba-

badzhanyan, 1981, 227-28)

For many of the Russian soldiers the 'lull' in the bridgeheads

was a period of back-breaking labour, spent in digging positions

and helping to bring up supplies and equipment. The forces

were packed closely together, and despite camouflage and

other forms of Maskirovka the Germans exacted a heavy toll

when they worked over the area with their methodical artillery

CHRISTOPHER DUFFY

strikes and their fighter-bombers bombed and strafed the cow-

ering Russians.

The political officers did what they could to keep up morale

and motivation into the New Year. The Party-political meetings

and the articles in the newspapers were mostly dull stuff, but

the commissars sought out veterans who could tell about earlier

Russian victories, and on some sectors they gave further point

to the training when they took the soldiers on tours of the

scenes of Nazi atrocities. The sights and smells of the death

camp at Maidanek made an especially deep impression on the

men of the First Guards Tank Army.

The business of working up the units culminated, where

possible, in live firing exercises. Lelyushenko's Fourth Tank

Army had the stimulating experience of testing the performance

of their new IS-2 Stalin tanks and the 152-mm M-43 assault

guns against the hulks of captured German vehicles. One of

the political officers noticed that a veteran tank man had led a

group of soldiers to a Tiger. It was pierced by numerous shot

holes, but he pointed out that the frontal armour was 100 mm

thick, and he advised his listeners to aim for the sides or rear

—it was no use looking for trouble for its own sake (Krain-

yukov, 1979, 57).

Altogether few forces in military history have been better

prepared for their task than the army groups of Konev and

Zhukov on the eve of the Vistula-Oder Operation.

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