The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II.
Operation Bagration was the codename for the Soviet 1944 Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation, a military campaign fought between 23 June and 19 August 1944 in Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front of World War II. The Soviet Union inflicted the biggest defeat in German military history by destroying 28 out of 34 divisions of Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line. It was the fifth deadliest campaign on the European war scene, killing around 450,000 soldiers.
The 1st Belorussian Front was a military formation, of Army group size, of the Soviet Army during the Second World War. Soviet army groups were known as Fronts.
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 5:1. 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 300 miles (483 km) from the Vistula to the Oder, only 43 miles (69 km) 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.
The Race to Berlin was a competition between two Soviet marshals, Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev, to be the first to enter Berlin during the final months of World War II in Europe.
The Battle of the Seelow Heights was part of the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation. A pitched battle, it was one of the last assaults on large entrenched defensive positions of the Second World War. It was fought over three days, from 16–19 April 1945. Close to 1,000,000 Soviet soldiers of the 1st Belorussian Front, commanded by Marshal Georgi Zhukov, attacked the position known as the "Gates of Berlin". They were opposed by about 110,000 soldiers of the German 9th Army, commanded by General Theodor Busse, as part of the Army Group Vistula.
The Battle of the Oder–Neisse is the German name for the initial (operational) phase of one of the last two strategic offensives conducted by the Red Army in the Campaign in Central Europe during World War II. Its initial breakthrough phase was fought over four days, from 16 April until 19 April 1945, within the larger context of the Battle of Berlin. The Soviet military planners divide the frontal and pincer phases of the operation, named Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation into:
The 1st Ukrainian Front' was a major formation of the Soviet Army during World War II, being equivalent to a Western army group.
Semyon Moiseevich Krivoshein was a Soviet tank commander, who played a vital part in the World War II reform of the Red Army tank forces and in the momentous clash between German and Soviet tanks in the Battle of Kursk.
The Battle of Königsberg, also known as the Königsberg Offensive, was one of the last operations of the East Prussian Offensive during World War II. In four days of urban warfare, Soviet forces of the 1st Baltic Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front captured the city of Königsberg, present day Kaliningrad, Russia. The siege started in late January 1945 when the Soviets initially surrounded the city. Heavy fighting took place for control of overland connection between Königsberg and the port of Pillau, however by March 1945 Königsberg was hundreds of kilometres behind the main front line in the eastern front. The battle ended when the German garrison surrendered to the Soviets on 9 April after a three-day assault made their position untenable.
The East Prussian Offensive was a strategic offensive by the Soviet Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. It lasted from 13 January to 25 April 1945, though some German units did not surrender until 9 May. The Battle of Königsberg was a major part of the offensive, which ended in victory for the Red Army.
The Battle of Bautzen was one of the last battles of the Eastern Front during World War II. It was fought on the extreme southern flank of the Spremberg-Torgau Offensive, seeing days of pitched street fighting between forces of the Polish Second Army under elements of the Soviet 52nd Army and 5th Guards Army on one side and elements of German Army Group Center in the form of the remnants of the 4th Panzer and 17th armies on the other.
The second Battle of Smolensk was a Soviet strategic offensive operation conducted by the Red Army as part of the Summer-Autumn Campaign of 1943. Staged almost simultaneously with the Lower Dnieper Offensive, the offensive lasted two months and was led by General Andrei Yeremenko, commanding the Kalinin Front, and Vasily Sokolovsky, commanding the Western Front. Its goal was to clear the German presence from the Smolensk and Bryansk regions. Smolensk had been under German occupation since the first Battle of Smolensk in 1941.
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 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.
The East Pomeranian Strategic Offensive operation was an offensive by the Soviet Red Army against the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. It took place in Pomerania and West Prussia from 10 February – 4 April 1945.
Operation Solstice, also known as Unternehmen Husarenritt or the Stargard tank battle, was one of the last German armoured offensive operations on the Eastern Front in World War II.
The Lower Silesian Offensive was a Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front of World War II in 1945, involving forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Ivan Konev. It cleared German troops from much of Lower Silesia and besieged a large German force in the provincial capital, Breslau. The offensive began on February 8 and continued until February 24, when the Soviets ceased their offensive having captured a small bridgehead across the Neisse River near Forst. The offensive directly succeeded the Vistula–Oder Offensive, in which Konev's troops had driven the German Army Group A from Poland, liberating Kraków and taking bridgeheads over the Oder River.
The Upper Silesian Offensive was a strategically significant Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front of World War II in 1945. It was aimed at capturing the considerable industrial and natural resources located in Upper Silesia and involved forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front under Marshal Ivan Konev. Due to the importance of the region to the Germans, considerable forces were provided to Army Group Centre for its defence and the Germans were only slowly pushed back to the Czech border. Fighting for the region lasted from mid January right until the last day of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945.
The 328th Rifle Division was formed as a standard Red Army rifle division at Yaroslavl late in the summer of 1941, as part of the massive buildup of new Soviet fighting formations in response to the German invasion. Like several other divisions in the 320-330 series, it was neither fully trained nor equipped when thrown into the Soviet winter counteroffensive as part of 10th Army, but did its part in throwing back the forces of German Army Group Center from the southern approaches to Moscow in December and January. Over the course of five months of nearly continual offensive combat the soldiers of the division distinguished themselves sufficiently to be re-designated as the 31st Guards Rifle Division. A few months later a new 328th was formed, this time in the Transcaucasus Military District as the German summer offensive of 1942 was producing a crisis in that region. This new division had a slow start, but eventually proved itself in fighting through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, gaining a battle honor for the liberation of Warsaw, and helping to complete the encirclement of Berlin in April 1945. Despite this record, it was disbanded shortly after the German surrender.
The 70th Army was a Soviet field army during World War II. It was the highest-numbered combined arms army to be formed by the Stavka during the war. It was active at the Battle of Kursk, the Lublin–Brest Offensive, and the Berlin Strategic Offensive, among other actions.
