Battle of Radzymin (1944)

Last updated

Battle of Radzymin
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Wolomin Battlefield.png
Battle of Radzymin
Date1–4 August 1944
Location
near Radzymin, Poland
Result German victory
Belligerents
Flag of Germany (1935-1945).svg  Germany Flag of the USSR (1936-1955).svg  Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Flag of Germany (1935-1945).svg Walter Model Flag of the USSR (1936-1955).svg Konstantin Rokossovsky

The Battle of Radzymin was one of a series of engagements between the 1st Byelorussian Front of the Red Army and the Army Group Centre of the German Army. The battle was part of the Lublin-Brest Offensive between 1 and 4 August 1944 at the conclusion of Operation Bagration the Belorussian strategic offensive operation near the town of Radzymin in the vicinity of Warsaw, part of which entailed a large tank battle at Wołomin. It was the largest tank battle on the territories of Poland during the war.

Contents

The approach of the Red Army towards Warsaw served to initiate the Warsaw Uprising by the Home Army with expectation of help from the Red Army. The battle ended in a Soviet defeat and the encirclement and destruction of the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps; it is unclear to what extent this defeat contributed to the Soviet decision not to aid the Warsaw Uprising.

Before the battle

After crossing into Poland, the Red Army's 1st Byelorussian Front of Konstantin Rokossovsky continued its advance towards Warsaw. The 65th Army (12 divisions) together with the attached 1st Guards Tank Corps, was to advance towards the town of Serock and then outflank Warsaw from the north. The 28th Army (9 divisions) together with 1st Mechanized and 9th Tank Corps was advancing directly towards Warsaw and was separated from the 47th Army by the Siedlce-Mińsk Mazowiecki line, and from the 65th Army by the Sokołów Podlaski-Węgrów-Radzymin line. Both armies, additionally supported by the 2nd and 4th Guards Cavalry Corps, were destined to take part in repelling a German tactical counter-assault at Radzymin and Wołomin near Warsaw. At the same time, the 47th Army (10 divisions) was to seize the southern approaches to Praga, seize right-bank Warsaw and cross the river through the bridges in Warsaw or through a temporary bridge in Góra Kalwaria. The 70th Army (4 divisions) was to follow the 47th and serve as a tactical reserve.

At the same time the remaining forces of the front were to support the assault on Warsaw by crossing the Vistula south of it, near Magnuszew and outflanking the city from the South and West. The 8th Guards Army (9 divisions) together with the 1st Polish Army (3 divisions) and 69th Army (9 divisions aided by the 11th Tank Corps) were to cross the river at Magnuszew.

Battle

After the Soviet reconnaissance units reached Warsaw in late July, on 1 August 1944 the Warsaw Uprising started. Starting from an area south of Mińsk Mazowiecki, Major General Nikolai Vedeneev's 3rd Tank Corps (part of the Soviet 2nd Tank Army) thrust northwest through Okuniew and Wołomin to Radzymin, reaching an area only three miles (five kilometers) from the strategic bridge over the Narew River at Zegrze.

In response to Vedeneev's thrust, the Germans started a tactical counter-attack near Radzymin on 31 July. The offensive, carried out by 4 understrength Panzer divisions, was to secure the eastern approaches to Warsaw and Vistula crossings, and aimed to destroy the three tank corps of the Second Tank Army in detail. Under the leadership of German Field Marshal Model, the 4th, 19th, Hermann Göring, and 5th SS Panzer Divisions were concentrated from different areas with their arrival in the area of Wołomin occurring between 31 July and 1 August 1944. Although the 3rd Tank Corps gamely defended the initial assaults of the Hermann Göring and 19th Panzer Divisions, the arrival of the 4th Panzer and 5th SS Panzer Divisions spelled doom for the isolated and outnumbered unit.

Already on 1 August, the leading elements of the 19th and 5th SS Panzer Divisions, closing from the west and east respectively, met at Okuniew, cutting the 3rd Tank Corps off from the other units of the Second Tank Army. Pressed into the area of Wołomin, the 3rd Tank Corps was pocketed and destroyed on 3 August 1944. Attempts to reach the doomed tank corps by the 8th Guards Tank Corps and the 16th Tank Corps failed, with the 8th Guards Tank Corps taking serious losses in the attempt. Although Model had planned to attack the 8th Guards Tank Corps next, the withdrawal of the 19th and Hermann Göring Panzer Divisions to shore up the German defenses around the Magnuszew bridgehead forced the remaining German forces around Okuniew to go on the defensive.

For unknown reasons, on 2 August 1944 all armies that were to assault Warsaw had their orders changed. The 28th, 47th and 65th Armies were ordered to turn northwards and seize the undefended town of Wyszków and the Liwiec river line. The 2nd Tank Army was left in place and had to fight the Germans alone, without support of the infantry. Also, 69th Army was ordered to stop while the 8th Guards Army under Vasily Chuikov was ordered to halt the assault and await a German attack from the direction of Garwolin.

Further combat lasted until 10 August, when the Germans finally withdrew. Soviet losses were heavy, but not heavy enough to affect the overall course of their thrust to the vicinity of Warsaw. The 3rd Tank Corps was destroyed, the 8th Guards Tank Corps took heavy losses, and the 16th Tank Corps took significant losses as well. Overall, the Second Tank Army's losses were significant enough that it was withdrawn from the front lines by 5 August 1944.

Aftermath

Altogether, between 1 and 10 August, the 2nd Tank Army lost 409 killed in action, 1,271 wounded and 589 missing. In addition, it lost 284 tanks and self-propelled guns (40% of these losses were non-recoverable, amounting to 113 armored vehicles lost permanently ) out of 679 available to the army on 30 July. After World War II, communist propaganda used the example of the Battle of Radzymin of 1944 as a proof that the German counter-attack prevented the Red Army from helping the Warsaw Uprising. However, it remains unknown why the Soviet assault was halted as some Russian archives are still closed to historians[ citation needed ]. Some Polish and Western historians argue that the Soviet assault was halted because Stalin wanted the Warsaw insurgents, loyal to the Polish government in exile (known for its anti-Soviet stance), destroyed.

The Soviet command apparently did not blame Lieutenant-General N. D. Vedeneev for the encirclement and destruction of the 3rd Tank Corps. Vedeneev survived the battle and remained in command. The 3rd Tank Corps was honored by being designated the 9th Guards Tank Corps in November 1944.

Order of Battle, 1st Belorussian Front on 1 August 1944

German units present at the Battle of Wołomin

See also

Notes

  1. ^ In 1941, a massive tank battle took place in the vicinity of Brody; this area was nominally a part of Poland until border agreements with USSR were signed in 1945. However, the official Polish historiography during the communist period was that the river Bug formed Poland's eastern border and the Polish territories east of it were called "Western Ukraine and Belarus". Nevertheless, the battle of Radzymin remains the largest tank battle on the territory of present-day Poland.
  2. ^ The 19th PzD had 70 armored fighting vehicles (AFV), meaning tanks, assault guns, and tank destroyers, the Hermann Göring had 63 AFVs, the 5th SS PzD had 66 AFVs, and the 4th PzD had 78 AFVs. Source for this data is Germany and the Second World War, p. 581.
  3. ^ When Titans Clash, p. 213.
  4. ^ Germany and the Second World War, pp. 582–583.
  5. ^ Танковый удар: танковая армия в наступательной операции фронта по опыту Великой Отечественной войны by Радзиевский Алексей Иванович, Map of 2nd Tank Army operations map
  6. ^ Танковый удар: танковая армия в наступательной операции фронта по опыту Великой Отечественной войны by Радзиевский Алексей Иванович link
  7. ^ Germany and the Second World War, p. 584, notes that Second Tank Army's strength in tanks and assault guns was 810 on 22 July 1944, and that this had dwindled to 263 armored fighting vehicles by 4 August 1944.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Group of Soviet Forces in Germany</span> Division of the Soviet Army which was stationed in East Germany

The Western Group of Forces (WGF), previously known as the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany (GSOFG) and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG), were the troops of the Soviet Army in East Germany. The Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany was formed after the end of World War II in Europe from units of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts. The group helped suppress the East German uprising of 1953. After the end of occupation functions in 1954 the group was renamed the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. The group represented Soviet interests in East Germany during the Cold War. Before changes in Soviet foreign policy during the early 1990s, the group shifted to a more offensive role and in 1989 became the Western Group of Forces. Russian forces remained in the eastern part of Germany after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and German reunification until 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1st Belorussian Front</span> Military unit

The 1st Belorussian Front was a major formation of the Soviet Army during World War II, being equivalent to a Western army group. The 1st Belorussian Front along with the 1st Ukrainian Front were the largest and most powerful among all Soviet fronts, as their main effort was to advance on the Nazi German capital Berlin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vistula–Oder offensive</span> 1945 invasion of Nazi-occupied territory by the Red Army during WWII

The Vistula–Oder offensive was a Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in the European theatre of World War II in January 1945. The army made a major advance into German-held territory, capturing Kraków, Warsaw and Poznań. The Red Army had built up their strength around a number of key bridgeheads, with two fronts commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev. Against them, the German Army Group A, led by Colonel-General Josef Harpe, was outnumbered five to one. Within days, German commandants evacuated the concentration camps, sending the prisoners on their death marches to the west, where ethnic Germans also started fleeing. In a little over two weeks, the Red Army had advanced 480 kilometres (300 mi) from the Vistula to the Oder, only 69 kilometres (43 mi) from Berlin, which was undefended. However, Zhukov called a halt, owing to continued German resistance on his northern flank (Pomerania), and the advance on Berlin had to be delayed until April.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">8th Guards Combined Arms Army</span> Russian Ground Forces formation

The 8th Guards Order of Lenin Combined Arms Army is an army of the Russian Ground Forces, headquartered in Novocherkassk, Rostov Oblast, within Russia′s Southern Military District, that was reinstated in 2017 as a successor to the 8th Guards Army of the Soviet Union's Red Army, which was formed during World War II and was disbanded in 1998 after being downsized into a corps. Military Unit в/ч 61877.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">4th Panzer Division (Wehrmacht)</span> German army division during World War II

The 4th Panzer Division was an armored division in the Army of Nazi Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Battle of Târgu Frumos</span>

The Second Battle of Târgu Frumos was a military engagement primarily between the Wehrmacht and Red Army forces in May 1944, near Iași, Romania. The battle was the main engagement of the Târgu Frumos Operation, and is often referred simply as the Battle of Târgu Frumos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">3rd Ukrainian Front</span> WW2 Soviet Red Army formation

The 3rd Ukrainian Front was a Front of the Soviet Red Army during World War II.

A tank corps was a type of Soviet armoured formation used during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vienna offensive</span> 1945 Soviet invasion of Nazi-occupied Vienna, Austria during WWII

The Vienna offensive was an offensive launched by the Soviet 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts in order to capture Vienna, Austria, during World War II. The offensive lasted from 16 March to 15 April 1945. After several days of street-to-street fighting, the Soviet troops captured the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lublin–Brest offensive</span> Soviet Union

The Lublin–Brest Offensive was a part of the Operation Bagration strategic offensive by the Soviet Red Army to clear the Nazi German forces from the regions of Eastern Poland and Western Belarus. The offensive was executed by the left (southern) wing of the 1st Belorussian Front and took place during July 1944; it was opposed by the German Army Group North Ukraine and Army Group Centre.

Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier-Division 2 "Hermann Göring" was a German military unit formed on 24 September 1944 in the area of Radom. It subsequently was joined with the Fallschirm-Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring to form the Fallschirm Panzer Corps Hermann Göring. After heavy fighting against the Soviet Army in Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, and Saxony, the Corps surrendered to Soviet troops on May 8, 1945.

This is the order of battle for German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army engaged in the battle in Berlin. The investment of Berlin began about 21 April 1945, it was followed by the assault and the capture of the city by the Soviets on 2 May 1945.

The 82nd Guards Rifle Division was reformed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in March 1943, based on the 2nd formation of the 321st Rifle Division, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War, including briefly in the Soviet Army.

The 16th Guards Tank Division was a tank division of the Soviet Army and later the Russian Ground Forces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Konrad III</span>

Operation Konrad III was a German military offensive on the Eastern Front of the Second World War. It was the third and most ambitious of the three Konrad Operations and had the objective of relieving the siege of Budapest and recapturing the entire Transdanubia region. Achieving complete surprise, the German offensive began on 18 January 1945. Supported by the Luftwaffe, the IV SS Panzer Corps, the principal German attack formation, overran the Soviet 4th Guards Army in two days, destroying hundreds of Soviet tanks along the way, reached the Danube river on 19 January and recaptured 400 square kilometers of territory in four days. After nine days of combat, and the destruction by the SS of two-thirds of Soviet tanks in the entire 3rd Ukrainian Front, the German offensive was stopped by Soviet reinforcements 25 kilometers short of Budapest on 26 January.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Nevel (1943)</span> Military action on the Eastern Front in World War II

The Battle of Nevel was a successful military operation conducted by the Red Army in the Pskov Oblast of western Russia and in northern Belarus during World War II, from October 6 to roughly December 16, 1943 although fighting persisted in the area into the new year.

The 50th Guards Rifle Division was an elite infantry division of the Red Army during World War II that continued as part of the Soviet Army during the early period of the Cold War. Converted into the 50th Guards Motor Rifle Division in the late 1950s, the division was based in Brest, Belarus. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the division became part of the Belarusian Ground Forces and was reduced to a brigade and then a storage base before being disbanded in 2006.

The 83rd Guards Rifle Division was reformed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in April 1943, based on the 2nd formation of the 97th Rifle Division, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Throughout its combat path it was considered a "sister" to the 84th Guards Rifle Division.

The 88th Guards Rifle Division was reformed as an elite infantry division of the Red Army in April 1943, based on the 1st formation of the 99th Rifle Division, and served in that role until after the end of the Great Patriotic War. It would become one of the most highly decorated rifle divisions of the Red Army.

The 234th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, originally formed out-of-sequence in the Moscow Military District in October-November 1941. Due to having a large cadre of members of the Communist Party it was commonly referred to as the Yaroslavl Communist Division. After forming and briefly taking part in the rear defenses of Moscow in early 1942 it was assigned to 4th Shock Army in Kalinin Front. It became involved in the fighting near Velizh and remained in that region until nearly the end of the year. In March 1943 the division played a minor role in the follow-up to Army Group Center's evacuation of the Rzhev salient, and at the beginning of August liberated several strategic villages northeast of Smolensk, soon being rewarded with a battle honor. During the following autumn and winter it took part in the grinding battles around Vitebsk until it was removed to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command for rebuilding and reorganization. When it returned to the front it was assigned to 47th Army in 1st Belorussian Front and took part in the later stages of Operation Bagration, advancing to the Vistula River near Warsaw. In September it received a second honorific for its part in the liberation of Praga. The 234th fought across Poland and into Pomerania early in 1945, winning two decorations in the process before being transferred to the 61st Army for the final offensive into northeast Germany. It was disbanded shortly thereafter.

References

Further reading