Battle of BiaystokMinsk

The Battle of BiaystokMinsk was a German strategic 2 Formations

operation conducted by the Army Group Centre during
the penetration of the Soviet border region in the open2.1 Soviet
ing stage of Operation Barbarossa lasting from 22 June
to 3 July 1941. Its goal, the encirclement and destruction
Western Front - Commander Army General Pavlov,
of the Red Army's Western Front forces around Minsk,
Operations Ocer General I.V. Boldin
was accomplished. All major Soviet counter-attacks and
3rd Army (Soviet Union) - V.I.Kuznetsov
break-through attempts failed and the defenders were defeated, allowing for the Wehrmacht to take many Soviet
4th Army (Soviet Union)
prisoners[4] and to further advance into the Soviet Union
(including 6th Rie Division (Soviet
at a pace so swift that some believed the Germans had
Union))
eectively won the war against the Soviet Union already.
10th Army (Soviet Union) - K.D.Golubev
(including 6th Mechanized Corps (Soviet
Union)[4] )
Second echelon (pending formation)

Prelude

13th Army (Soviet Union) - Lieutenant

(General P. M. Filatow)

Commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, Army

Group Centre was tasked with attacking from Poland 2.2 German
through the Biaystok - Minsk - Smolensk axis towards
Army Group Centre (German: Heeresgruppe Mitte)Moscow. The Army Group included the 9th and 4th
Commander Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock
Armies. Its armored forces were Hoths 3rd Panzer
Group and Guderians 2nd Panzer Group. The two in 3rd Panzer Group - Generaloberst Hermann
fantry Armies elded 33 divisions and the Panzer Armies
Hoth
elded nine armored divisions, six motorized divisions
XXXIX Army Corps (mot) - Generand a cavalry division. Army Group Center could call
aloberst Rudolf Schmidt
upon Luftotte 2 for air support.
LVII Army Corps (mot) - General der
Facing Army Group Center was the Red Armys Western
Panzertruppen Adolf Kuntzen
Front commanded by General of the Army Dmitry
VI Army Corps - General der Pioniere
Pavlov. It included the 3rd, 4th, and 10th Armies along
Otto-Wilhelm Frster
the frontier. The 13th Army was held as part of the Stavka
9th Army - Generaloberst Adolf Strauss
High Command Reserve and initially existed as a headquarters unit only, with no assigned forces. All together,
V Army Corps - Generaloberst Richard
the Soviet Western Front had 25 rie and cavalry diviRuo
sions, 13 tank and 7 motorized divisions.
VIII Army Corps - Generaloberst Walter
Heitz
The Red Army disposition in Belarus was based on the
idea of an aggressive response to a German attack, car XX Army Corps- General der Infanterie
rying the war into German-occupied Poland, but suered
Friedrich Materna
from weakness along the anks, created by the line of de 4th Army - Generalfeldmarschall Gnther von
marcation placement following the division of Poland in
Kluge
1939. The forward placement of both German and So VII Army Corps - General der Artillerie
viet forces in a double-bulge position enabled both sides
Wilhelm Fahrmbacher
to try the double envelopment. It was the OKH that un IX Army Corps - General der Infanterie
dertook it successfully, severing most of the Soviet WestHermann Geyer
ern Fronts forces from other Soviet fronts in a twin en XII Army Corps - General der Infanterie
circlement, centred on Biaystok and Navahrudak, to the
west of Minsk.
Walther Schroth
1

3 THE OPERATION
XIII Army Corps - General der Infanterie
Hans Felber
XLIII Corps - Generaloberst Gotthard
Heinrici
2nd Panzer Group - Generaloberst Heinz Guderian
XXIV Panzer Corps - General der Panzertruppen Leo Freiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg
XLVI Panzer Corps - General Heinrich
von Viettingho-Scheel
XLVII Panzer Corps- General der Panzertruppen Joachim Lemelsen
10th Infantry Division (mot.) - Generalleutnant Friedrich-Wilhelm von Loeper
1st Cavalry Division - Generalleutnant
Kurt Feldt
Reserve:
2nd Army
Maximilian von Weichs

Generaloberst

XXXV Corps - General der Infanterie

Rudolf Kaempfe
XLII Corps - General der Pioniere Walter
Kuntze
LIII Army Corps - General der Infanterie
Karl Weisenberger
286th Backup Division - Generalleutnant
Kurt Mller

2.3

Tanks

a key strategic railway junction and a defensive position

of the main road and rail communications with Moscow.
Also caught in the German operation was part of the 11th
Army of the Northwestern Front. In the north, 3rd Panzer
Group attacked, cutting the 11th Army from Western
Front, and crossed the Neman River. The 2nd Panzer
Group crossed the Bug River and by 23 June had penetrated 60 km into Soviet territory. The Panzer Groups
objectives were to meet east of Minsk and prevent any
Red Army withdrawal from the encirclement. Operating
with the Panzer Groups to encircle the Soviet forces, the
9th Army and 4th Army cut into the salient, beginning
to encircle Soviet Armies around Biaystok. On 23 June,
the Soviet 10th Army attempted a counter-attack in accordance with pre-war planning, but failed to achieve its
goals. On 24 June, General Pavlov ordered his operations
ocer, General Boldin, to take charge of the 6th, 11th
Mechanized Corps and 6th Cavalry Corps for a counterattack towards Hrodna to prevent the encirclement of Red
Army formations near Biaystok. This attack failed with
heavy losses, although it may have allowed some units to
escape the western encirclement towards Minsk.
In the evening of 25 June, the German XLVII Panzer
Corps cut between Slonim and Vawkavysk, forcing
Pavlov to order the withdrawal of all troops in the salient
behind the Shchara River at Slonim to avoid encirclement. Most formations could not break contact with
the Germans, and due to the loss of fuel and transport
assets those who could break out, had to withdraw on
foot. This withdrawal opened the southern approaches
of Minsk.

Five days after the invasion on 27 June, the pincer of

On 22 June 1941, the balance of tanks over the entire Guderians 2nd Panzer Group and Hoths 3rd Panzer
Group closed east of Minsk. The Panzer Groups had adarea of the Soviet Western Front was as follows.
vanced 321 km into the Soviet Union and almost a third
of the distance to Moscow. On 28 June, the 9th and
4th German Armies linked up east of Biaystok splitting
3 The operation
the encircled Soviet forces into two pockets: a smaller
Biaystok pocket containing the Soviet 10th Army and
a larger Navahrudak pocket containing the 3rd and 13th
Armies. Ultimately, in 17 days the Soviet Western Front
lost 420,000 personnel from a total of 625,000. On 26
June Minsk, the capital of Belarus, fell to the Wehrmacht.
A second Red Army counter-attack by the 20th Mechanized Corps and 4th Airborne Corps failed to breach the
encirclement as well, and by 30 June the pocket was completely closed.
The German forces surrounded and eventually destroyed
or took prisoner most of the Soviet 3rd and 10th, 13th
Armies and part of the 4th Army, in total about 20 divisions, while the remainder of the 4th Army fell back
eastwards towards the Western Berezina River.
The Red Armys salient which jutted into German occu- The Luftwae 's Luftotte 2 helped destroy the VVS
pied Polish territory with its center at Biaystok was es- Western Front. Some 1,669 Soviet aircraft had been desential for OKH planning. Beyond Biaystok, Minsk was stroyed. The Luftwae lost 276 as destroyed and an ad-

3
ditional 208 damaged. After only a week of ghting, the pressed. They were pardoned in 1956. An exception to
total serviceable strength of Luftotte 1, Luftotte 2 and this was Pavlovs operations ocer, general Ivan Boldin,
Luftotte 4 had been reduced to just 960 machines.[7]
who had been cut o by the German advance at a forward
headquarters in the rst days of the invasion and subsequently fought his way back to Soviet lines with over a
thousand other soldiers a month and a half later.
4 Consequences

5 Bibliography
Bergstrm, Christer (2007). Barbarossa - The
Air Battle: JulyDecember 1941.
London:
Chervron/Ian Allen. ISBN 978-1-85780-270-2.
Ziemke, E.F. 'Moscow to Stalingrad'
David M. Glantz; Jonathan M. House (1995). When
Titans clashed: how the Red Army stopped Hitler.
University Press of Kansas.

Ruins of Minsk - July 1941

The Soviet troops trapped in the gigantic pockets continued ghting, and concluding operations resulted in high
German casualties. Many Soviet troops, an estimated
quarter of a million, escaped due to the lack of German
infantry troops motor transport that slowed the encirclement process. Most of these troops were later sent to
penal battalions.
The Polish Institute of National Remembrance claims
that withdrawing Soviet troops committed regular crimes
against the inhabitants of Biaystok and its areas, including cases of whole families being executed by ring
squads.[8]
On conclusion, 290,000 Soviet soldiers were captured,
and 1,500 guns along with 2,500 tanks were destroyed,
but 250,000 Soviet troops managed to escape (most of
the prisoners would be dead within a few months because
of inhumane conditions at the POW enclosures).
The quick advance East created the possibility for the
Wehrmacht to advance rapidly towards the land bridge
of Smolensk, from which an attack on Moscow could
be planned. It also created the impression in the OKW
that the war against the Soviet Union was already won,
within days of its start. Despite this feat, Hitler blamed
the panzer generals for leaving gaps in the lines and the
panzer generals for their part were deeply frustrated as for
almost a week their advance east had been stopped while
they closed the pocket and waited for the infantry to catch
up. They feared the momentum of the armored oensive
would be lost.
The Front commander General Pavlov and his Front Sta
were recalled to Moscow, accused of intentional disorganization of defense and retreat without battle. They were
soon executed by the NKVD because of cowardice and
failure to perform their duties. Their families were re-

David M. Glantz (2001). Barbarossa: Hitlers invasion of Russia 1941 (1.udg. ed.). Stroud: Tempus.
ISBN 0-7524-1979-X.
The initial period of war on the Eastern Front, 22
JuneAugust 1941 : proceedings of the Fourth Art
of War Symposium, Garmisch, FRG, October 1987 /
edited by David M. Glantz ISBN 0-7146-3375-5.
Bryan I. Fugate and Lev Dvoretsky, Thunder on
the Dnepr : Zhukov-Stalin and the defeat of Hitlers
Blitzkrieg
Geyer, H. Das IX. Armeekorps im Ostfeldzug

6 References
[1] German accounts give 287,704 POW: Bergstrom 2007,
p.
28: Cites Krivosheyev, Grif sekretnosti snyat.
Poterivooruzhyonnykh sil SSSR v voynakh, boyevykh
deystviyakh i voyennykh koniktakh, p. 162.
[2] Glantz 1995, p. 293
[3] Bergstrom 2007, p. 28: Cites Pshenyanik, Sovtskie
Voenno-vozdushnye sily v bor'be snemetsko fashistskoy
aviatssiey v letne-osenney kampanii 1941, p. 94.
[4] Mark Soonin (2007). 22 czerwca 1941 czyli Jak zacza si Wielka Wojna ojczyniana (in Polish). Tomasz
Lisiecki (trans.) (1 ed.). Pozna, Poland: Dom
Wydawniczy Rebis. pp. 528529. ISBN 978-83-7510130-0. (the only English translations of Solonins works
seem to be, as of June 2011, these online chapters)
[5] Total German tanks includes non-combat commander
tanks as well as outdated Panzer I and Panzer II tanks
[6] On 1 June there were 114 KV tanks, 238 T-34 tanks, but
another 100 T-34 tanks were received until 22 June 1941
(Solonin 2007, pp. 99100).

[7] Bergstrom 2007, p. 28.

[8] Investigation into the murders of several Poles in Biaystok and its area in June 1941.

REFERENCES

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Battle of BiaystokMinsk Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bia%C5%82ystok%E2%80%93Minsk?oldid=670469498

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