All language subtitles for Soviet.Storm.WWII.in.the.East.Series.2.2of9.Operation.Bagration.1080p.WEB-DL.h264.AC3.MVGroup.Forum_[eng]

Summer 1944. One year on from
their great defeat at Kursk,

the German armed forces are
suffering shortages in men,
tanks and aircraft.

Now Hitler faces
war on two fronts.

As troops move west
to face the D-Day landings,

the Red Army prepares
a mighty offensive in the East.

In the middle of the night,
and under close guard,

a new tank regiment arrived at a
train station near the border
with Byelorussia.

Alongside the T-34s,
some very heavy,

bulky objects covered in
tarpaulin were unloaded from the
flat-bed wagons.

The Red Army s plans
in Byelorussia were top secret.

These objects would remain
a mystery for several days...

until they unveiled on
the training ground.

They were heavy metal rollers,
which were to be attached to the
front of a T-34.

They transformed the tank
into a minesweeper.

The rollers would detonate
any mine in the tank s path,

clearing a safe lane for
infantry and other vehicles to
follow.

Two regiments of
these engineer tanks

had been secretly deployed
to the 1st Byelorussian Front.

Clearly the Front Commander,
General Rokossovsky,

was planning some
sort of offensive.

But to any onlooker,
Soviet forces in Byelorussia

seemed only to be making
defensive preparations.

From the air, only movement away
from the frontlines could be
detected.

Everything was being done
to give the impression

that this sector was
being weakened,

and that a Soviet offensive was
being prepared somewhere else.

On 6th June 1944, the day of the
Allied landings in Normandy,

Stalin wrote to Churchill: The
summer offensive of the Soviet
Forces,

as was agreed at the Tehran
Conference, will begin in
mid-June,

at one of the vital
sectors of the front.

Which "vital sector" was not
even to be shared with Allied
heads of government.

In the east, the Germans were
firmly on the defensive in June
1944,

as they struggled to fend off
the D-Day landings in France.

Army Group North
was retreating from Leningrad.

Army Group South had given up
the Crimea and much of Ukraine.

Only Army Group Centre
seemed to be hanging on.

German positions on this front
formed the so-called
Byelorussian balcony .

Here Army Group Centre stood
firm. Over the winter

it had successfully repulsed two
Soviet offensives around Vitebsk
and Orsha.

Hitler and the German Army High
Command had much to consider

as summer approached. They had
no firm intelligence on when

or where the main Soviet
offensive would be launched.

The Germans decided
that Stalin would seek

to capitalise on his recent
gains in Ukraine.

They had brought the Red Army
to withing striking distance

of Romania and its oil fields.

So in the summer of 1944,

precious German reserves of
tanks and aircraft were sent
south.

When the Soviet Stavka High
command saw German
reinforcements moving to
Ukraine,

it confirmed their decision to
launch a surprise attack in
Byelorussia.

Here, the Red Army would be
given the chance to avenge its
worst defeat,

suffered at German hands
in the first months of the war.

The operation was
codenamed Bagration.

The Stavka planned a series of
assaults against the flanks of
Army Group Centre,

which would be encircled and
destroyed near the cities of
Vitebsk and Bobruisk.

Then the Red Army would advance
on Minsk, cutting off German
retreat.

The Soviet planned nothing less
than the total destruction

of German Army Group Centre.

The Red Army had never set
itself such a massive and
ambitious goal.

General Rokossovsky proposed
that his 1st Byelorussian Front

deliver two simultaneous thrusts
against the German right flank,

at Bobruisk and Slutsk. Each
thrust would be given equal
priority.

This contradicted standard
Soviet military doctrine,

which dictated that there be
a single main axis of advance,

with all other attacks acting in
a supporting role.

Konstantin Konstantinovich
Rokossovsky was a decorated hero

of the First World War
and the Russian Civil War.

But probably because
of his Polish origin,

he found himself under arrest
in Stalin s Great Purge of 1937.

Despite being tortured
by the NKVD secret police,

he refused to sign a confession
or inform on his colleagues.

He was released in 1940
and restored to his rank.

At the beginning of the war
he commanded a mechanised corps,

but rose rapidly
to senior command.

In May 1944, Rokossovsky was
summoned to a meeting of the
Stavka

to defend his proposal. It was a
dramatic scene, in which his
plan

to deliver two simultaneous
thrusts came in for much
criticism.

In his memoirs Rokossovsky
wrote: I was twice sent into
the next room

to think over the Supreme
Command s comments.

And each time I came back, I was
yet more insistent that I was
correct.

At last Stalin said: "The Front
Commander s persistence proves

that the planning of the
offensive has been thoroughly
considered.

It is a firm guarantee
of success.

Rokossovsky s proposal
had the green light.

Vitebsk was held by General
Reinhardt s Third Panzer Army.

But depsite its
impressive name, by 1944,

Third Panzer Army
had hardly any tanks left.

General Reinhardt began the war
in command of the 4th Panzer
Division,

but replaced Hoth as commander
of Third Panzer Group

during the Battle
of Moscow in 1941.

That year his tanks had got to
within 15 kilometres of the
Russian capital.

Army Group Centre
was made up of four armies,

with a total strength of about
1 million men.

Operation Bagration
was to be the largest

and most thoroughly prepared
Soviet operation of the war so
far.

If the Germans
had discovered the preparations,

they would immediately have
reinforced the Byelorussian
front.

The forests and swamps
presented enough difficulties.

German reinforcements
would have been disastrous.

Therefore, secrecy was
of the utmost importance.

All troop movements took place
only at night, under camouflage,
with no lights.

White posts were placed at the
roadside to keep drivers on the
road.

Tailgates and bonnets were
painted white so they could be
seen by other vehicles.

Units that hadn t reached
their destination by dawn

would immediately pull over and
begin to camouflage their
vehicles.

A special pass was needed
to drive a vehicle in daytime,

and less than a hundred passes
had been allocated to each army.

Soviet aircraft flew overhead to
inspect the troops camouflage.

If a pilot spotted a Red Army
unit, he dropped a pennant.

This told the unit commander
that his men could be seen from
the air,

and that he had to
improve his camouflage.

Security measures were in place
from top to bottom.

Plans were drawn up by hand
by just two or three officers,

and taken to the Stavka by the
Front Commander in person.

Around Vitebsk, the decision
was made not to bring up

any tanks for the
first phase of the attack.

There was too much risk
that they would be detected.

Red Army radio traffic vanished.

Russian units were notorious
for bad radio discipline.

But as one German noted, The
Russians broke with tradition,

and observed complete
radio silence.

Meanwhile, Soviet soldiers
practiced crossing

the swamps and forests
of Byelorussia.

Infantrymen learnt how
to cross marshes, how to swim,

and how to find
their bearings in the woods.

Many made marsh-shoes so they
could walk without sinking into
the swamps.

They built rafts to transport
machineguns, mortars and light
guns through the marsh.

Logs and fascines bundles
of sticks tied together

were laid to create
roads for vehicles.

Meanwhile, supplies
flooded in by rail.

The Stavka had ordered that the
troops were to be issued with
five times

their normal ammunition load
for the offensive.

This amount of shells,
bullets and grenades

would require 6,500 railway
carriages to transport.

In total 400,000 tons of
ammunition, 300,000 tons of
fuel,

and more than 500,000 tons
of food and forage

were delivered
to the troops in Byelorussia.

It meant that every day, 100
supply trains arrived at the
front.

It was impossible to completely
conceal preparations of such
magnitude.

But the German High
Command still thought

that the Soviet attack
would come in Ukraine.

Field Marshal Busch,
Commander of Army Group Centre

went on leave three days
before the Soviet offensive.

His million-strong army group
was about to be attacked

by the combined
strength of four Soviet fronts.

2.4 million soldiers, 5,200
tanks and self-propelled guns,

and 5,300 aircraft.

The final preparations for the
offensive fell to Red Army
engineers.

Both sides had laid massive
minefields in front of their
lines.

Now the engineers would have
to crawl into these minefields

and begin to clear safe lanes
for the attack.

They would have to work
in the dark and in silence.

And they had just two nights
to complete the job.

The key element of any mine
is the firing mechanism.

Pressure on it causes
the mine to explode.

Demining involves
first of all locating the mine,

then removing or disabling
the firing mechanism,

and then removing the disarmed
mine to a safe place.

The mine clearance teams
had to work quickly and quietly.

They knew that a single mistake
could cost them their life.

To save time, the engineers
only removed detonators,

leaving the actual
mine in place.

They also had to worry
about German booby traps,

including trip wires hidden
amongst the long summer grass.

Both sides were forced to
constantly refine and update
their methods,

to counter new threats
or tricks devised by the enemy.

Step by step, the engineers
picked a path through this
lethal landscape.

In just two nights,
they d defused 34,000 mines.

It was the final stage
of preparation.

Through these cleared lanes,
the Red Army was now poised

to launch one of the largest and
most decisive operations in
history.

The final preparations had been
made for the great Soviet summer
offensive of 1944.

A last minute change to its
timing only added to the weight
of expectation.

Operation Bagration
would begin on 22nd June

the third anniversary
of Germany s invasion.

The offensive began on
the northern flank,

with probing attacks
in the vicinity of Vitebsk.

Here, infantry of the 1st Baltic
and 3rd Byelorussian Fronts

successfully stormed
the German front line trenches.

By nightfall, Soviet units were
engaged along the entire front,

as probing attacks gave way
to full-blooded assault.

Hundreds of aircraft arrived
overhead to pour bombs onto the
German front line.

At dawn the T-34s
joined the assault.

Swarms of Ilyushin ground-attack
aircraft crossed the front line,

with orders to hunt and destroy
German artillery batteries in
the enemy rear.

German heavy artillery
was a feared opponent,

capable of stalling
the whole offensive.

But it was also extremely
vulnerable to air attack.

In low level strafing attacks,
The IL-2s used machine guns,

canons and rockets to mow down
gun crews and destroy ammunition
stockpiles.

The Ilyushin IL-2 was designed

by Sergey Ilyushin of the
Soviet Central Design Bureau.

It became the most heavily
produced military aircraft of
all time.

The crew and engine
were protected by armour.

This was essential to protect
them from small arms fire,

when making low level attacks at
an altitude of just 25 - 50
metres.

The Il-2 was slow and therefore
extremely vulnerable to German
fighter attack.

So by the second
half of the war,

they always flew their missions
with a fighter escort.

But by June 1944, the Luftwaffe
was a shadow of its former self.

German Army Group Centre had
just 40 fighters available for
air defence.

Its troops had been left wide
open to Soviet air attack.

Soviet Shturmovik ground attack
aircraft roamed freely over the
battlefield,

often dispensing
with their fighter escorts.

Meanhwile, Hitler had come up
with the idea of the fortress
town .

Troops defending locations
with this special status

were expected to fight
to the last man,

even when completely surrounded.
One such "fortress town" was
Vitebsk.

The city was held
by the 53rd Corps,

part of General Reinhardt s
Third Panzer Army.

After the first day s fighting,
Reinhardt proposed to withdraw

his forces from Vitebsk
before they became cut off.

But Field Marshal Busch passed on
the Fuehrer s order

the city was to be
held at all costs.

On the third day of the battle,
the Red Army duly encircled the
53rd Corps at Vitebsk.

Only now, when it was too late,
did Hitler authorise a retreat.

But he still insisted that one
division be left behind in
Vitebsk

with orders to fight to the end.

The Germans desperate attempt
to escape the trap was doomed
from the start.

The breakout was led by the
4th Luftwaffe Field Division,

which got as far as the forests
to the southwest of the city.

There, it came under
overwhelming artillery and air
attack, and was annihilated.

After five days of fighting, the
German 53rd Corps capitulated.

17,000 survivors
entered captivity,

amongst them the corps
commander, General Gollwitzer.

The single German infantry
division left in Vitebsk met a
similar fate.

The Red Army burst into the
city, capturing the bridge over
the Western Dvina.

The Germans tried to escape
at the last minute,

but all were either
killed or captured.

Meanwhile to the south,
Rokossovsky s 1st Byelorussian
Front

began their attack towards
the city of Bobruysk.

This was where Rokossovsky was
attempting his controversial
two-pronged assault,

from the direction of Rogachov,
and from the village of Parichi.

Zhukov arrived to observe the
assault of General Gorbatov s
Third Army.

With Rokossovsky directing the
southern attack across the
marshes,

and Zhukov co-ordinating
the northern assault,

a clear rivalry had developed as
to who would be first to crack
the German lines.

Near Rogachov, Soviet heavy
bombers attacked under cover of
darkness.

They were helped to their target
by Red Army trucks,

drawn up in long lines, facing
eastwards with their headlights
turned on.

These lights, hidden
from the Germans,

pointed the Soviet pilots
towards their target.

In his memoirs, General
Gorbatov wrote:

First we heard the buzz of
light aircraft flying over to
attack the enemy positions.

Then this noise was joined by
the rumble of heavy aircraft,
wave after wave of them.

Soon the enemy lines erupted
in explosions and flame.

At dawn, Soviet ground attack
aircraft continued the
bombardment.

They strafed German trenches,
and pummeled strongpoints with
rockets and bombs.

Soviet air attacks could be
wild and inaccurate,

but now they also began to take
a fearsome psychological toll on
the German soldiers.

With no protection
from the Luftwaffe,

they lived in almost constant
fear of a sudden, deadly attack
from above.

Before the smoke had cleared,
shells and Katyusha rockets
screamed through the air.

As the bombardment raged,
minesweeping tanks began their
advance.

Their heavy rollers detonated
the mines in their path,
clearing wide lanes

for the tanks and self-propelled
guns that followed in their
wake.

Despite this massive assault
by land and air,

the Red Army continued to
encounter fierce German
resistance around Rogachov.

But further to the south
around the village of Parichi,

General Rokossovsky was making
steady progress through the
swamps and forests.

Now he ordered forward General
Pliyev s mechanized cavalry
corps

to exploit the breach.

Rokossovsky s gamble on a
two-pronged assault had paid
off.

He had made a breakthrough. And
he had done it before Zhukov.

Army Group Centre s only
panzer division was ordered

to make a counterattack
near Rogachov.

But at the last moment it
received urgent new orders

to move south
to block Rokossovsky s advance.

Many of its vehicles broke down
in the difficult, marshy
terrain.

But Rokossovsky had widened the
breach and was already pouring
in fresh troops.

One panzer division
was not going to stop him now.

German defences around Rogachov,
robbed of their tank
reinforcement

and under Zhukov s incessant
hammer blows, now collapsed.

The German Ninth Army was
encircled. Two days later, it
surrendered.

20,000 Germans were
taken prisoner.

The Red Army s next objective
was Minsk, the capital of
Byelorussia.

Its liberation was to be led by
General Rotmistrov s 5th Guards
Tank Army.

The plan was for Rotmistrov s
tanks to dash straight down the
Smolensk-Minsk highway.

But attempts to capture Orsha,
along the route, had been
bloodily repulsed.

So the decision was taken to
launch the attack from the
vicinity of Vitebsk,

where the Red Army had already
blown a hole through the German
defences.

The 5,000 vehicles of the 5th
Guards Tank Army began their
attack towards Borisov,

deep in the rear of
Army Group Centre.

For two days, their advance
met virtually no resistance.

Meanwhile, Hitler had relieved
Field Marshal Busch of command.

His successor was
Field Marshal Model,

the so-called "Fuehrer s
fireman" and master of defence.

But he inherited a
desperate situation.

Three Soviet Fronts
were advancing on Minsk.

The Germans were in full
retreat, hoping to reach the
Berezina River.

But the Red Army already held
most of the crossing points.

The Germans held just one bridge
on the Mogilev Minsk highway.

Thousands of German vehicles,
carts and soldiers were now
converging on the bridge.

One German witness
described the scene.

The scramble was wildest on
the approaches to the bridge.

Carts and cars were trying
to push each other off the road.

Each wanted to be first onto the
bridge. There were fights and
swearing.

The military police
were powerless .

And always, there was
the constant fear of air attack.

"Shturmovik" ground attack
aircraft mauled retreating
columns of German troops.

Increasingly, the situation
began to resemble the summer of
1941.

But now the roles were reversed.

It was the Germans turn to flee
in terror and confusion,

under incessant
attack from above.

And now they could expect
neither respite, nor mercy.

As German Army Group Centre
threatened to disintegrate,

the Wehrmacht threw its medium
bombers into the battle.

It was hoped they could halt
the Soviet tank columns,

and earn their own troops some
desperately-needed breathing
space.

But in the face of
Soviet air superiority,

daylight raids led
to heavy losses for little gain.

One week into the offensive,
German panzer divisions began to
arrive from Ukraine.

The German 5th Panzer Division,
reinforced with a battalion of
Tiger tanks,

prepared to meet the advance
of Rotmistrov s army.

The Tigers and Panthers slowed
the Soviet advance to a bloody
crawl.

In July 1944, the 5th Guards
Tank army had yet to receive the
new -34-85 tanks.

This updated version had a much
more powerful 85mm gun.

Although it didn t make them the
equal of a German Tiger or
Panther tank,

it did make their encounters
less one-sided.

The tank battles
raged for two days.

The Red Army suffered
enormous losses.

But German tank strength was
also reduced, from 159 to just
18 tanks.

The fate of Minsk was sealed.

Tigers and Panthers had bought
Army Group Centre some time,

but they couldn t prop
up the entire front.

At dawn on 3rd July, tanks of
the 1st and 3rd Byelorussian
Fronts

rolled into Minsk
from the north and southeast,

encircling the remnants
of two German Armies.

Meanwhile the 2nd Byelorussian
Front harried the German retreat
from the east.

It took a week to eradicate
German resistance within Minsk.

The encirclement at Minsk led to
the capture of another 35,000
prisoners,

including 12 generals.

By now German Army Group Centre
had suffered catastrophic
losses.

17 of its divisions had been
wiped out in just two weeks of
fighting.

The Germans had suffered total
casualties estimated at 409,000.

150,00 of these were prisoners.

The German panzer divisions
remained a potent weapon.

But Army Group Centre no longer
had the manpower to form a
defensive line.

Operation Bagration did not end
until 19th August,

by which time the Red Army
had reached central Poland,

the border of East Prussia, and
the Baltic Sea. Five Soviet
Fronts,

on a front of more than 1,000
kilometres, had advance between
550 and 600 kilometres.

The success of the operation
surpassed the wildest
expectations

of the Stavka High Command.

After Operation Bagration,
Stalin began to address
Rokossovsky

using both his name and
patronymic Konstantin
Konstantinovich.

The only person he d honoured in
this way before was Marshal
Shaposhnikov,

his most trusted general.

The Soviet victory
was so overwhelming

that some foreign press agencies
doubted whether the reports were
accurate.

So, Stalin decided to prove it.

He gave the order to begin
Operation The Great Waltz,

named after a popular
American film of 1938.

Trains from Byelorussia secretly
began to arrive in Moscow.

The Central Moscow Hippodrome
and the Dynamo Stadium were
cordoned off.

On 17 July it was announced to
the public that German
prisoners-of-war

captured in Operation Bagration
would be paraded through the
streets of Moscow.

Muscovites poured onto the
streets to witness this strange
spectacle.

The procession was led by 19
German generals in full uniform.

They were followed
by more than 1,000 officers.

After them shuffled columns
of weary, unshaven soldiers.

This was what Stalin
wanted the world to see

the fate of Adolf Hitler s
once proud conquering army.

The people of Moscow watched
for the most part in silence.

In many of their minds, the
German soldier had become almost
totally dehumanised.

The Soviet people had been
subjected to endless propaganda.

But they had also suffered
terrible and brutal losses.

To many, the German soldier
was a fascist beast,

responsible for murders and
rapes, and the burning of
villages and towns.

57,000 German prisoners
were paraded through the city,

on route to labour
camps in the east.

The procession was followed up
by street cleaners,

washing away all trace
of the hated fascists.

This startling display made
a huge impression on Muscovites

and foreign observers alike,
as was its intention.

Now none had any doubt in the
war s ultimate victorious
conclusion.

The collapse of German Army
Group Centre allowed the Red
Army

to continue its advance towards
Poland and East Prussia.

In the Baltic region, the
advance was led by General
Bagramyan s 1st Baltic Front

and General Chernyakhovsky s 3rd
Byelorussian Front.

On 8th July Chernyakhovsky s
troops reached the outskirts of
Vilnius.

The city was soon surrounded,
and after five days of vicious
house-to-house fighting,

the garrison laid down its arms.

The 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps
made a bold and rapid advance,

covering 70 kilometres to reach
the Lithuanian city of Šiauliai.

On 31st July, the commander
of its 8th Mechanized Brigade

radioed corps headquarters to
tell them, We re on the beach
of the Gulf of Riga .

This short radio message
meant something incredible

all German forces in the Baltic
were now cut off.

The commander s report
was so unexpected

that his corps commander
asked him to repeat it.

Then he have him the following
unusual order: Fill three
bottles with sea water.

Then seal the bottles, and have
the commander sign them
personally

to confirm that the water was
taken from the Baltic Sea.

Then send the bottles
to corps headquarters.

The bottles of sea water were
delivered to Front headquarters
by aircraft,

and from there sent to Moscow
they were on their way to
Stalin.

Soon, the bottles stood
on a Kremlin table,

as proof that Soviet tanks
had reached the sea.

Operation Bagration had smashed
open the Eastern Front.

Now the Red Army was on the move
in the Baltic. Next stop was
Tallinn.

The Estonian capital was the
objective of Red Army units

of the 8th Estonian Rifle Corps,
under Lieutenant General Pärn.

He organised a motorised column
which covered a hundred
kilometres in one day.

His men stormed into Tallinn and
took the city on 22nd September,
1944.

Now there just remained German
Army Group North, trapped in the
Courland Peninsula.

Despite repeated requests from
General Guderian, now Chief of
the General Staff,

Hitler refused to allow the
troops to be evacuated from
Courland.

The German pocket in Courland
was described as "an armed
prisoner of war camp".

The troops trapped there ceased
to have any influence on the
course of the war.

Army Group Courland finally laid
down its arms on 11th May, 1945,

two days after
Germany s surrender.

The Red Army had reached the
border of East Prussia. It was
here, at Königsberg,

that remnants of Army Group
Centre had withdrawn after
defeat in Byelorussia.

The shattered German formations
had received new recruits and
new weaponry.

The Red Army couldn t safely
bypass such a potential hornet s
nest.

Nor did the prospect of a long
siege appeal to the Stavka.

The decision was taken
to isolate East Prussia

with a thrust north into East
Pomerania, towards Danzig on the
Baltic coast.

Then resistance in East Prussia
would be methodically broken
down. It would be hard.

Many German units now fought
fanatically to defend Germany

from the wrath of the Red Army.

The job of breaking through
to the Baltic was entrusted

to Rokossovsky s 2nd
Byelorussian Front. He attacked
on 14th January 1945.

But just one day into the
offensive, the weather took a
turn for the worse.

Rokossovsky recalled: It was
already daylight but nothing
could be seen:

everything was hidden by a veil
of mist and falling snow.

The weather was abominable, and
the meteorologists predicted no
improvement.

So I cancelled all
air operations.

The artillery fired blindly
into the snowstorm.

The infantry advance was slow,
just 3 or 4 kilometres on the
first day.

The Germans stiffened their
defence with Tiger tanks and
Sturmgeschütz assault guns.

General Reinhardt, now in
command of Army Group Centre,

still hoped to launch an
armoured counterattack to stem
the Soviet advance.

But his tanks were sent south to
face more Soviet offensives on
the Vistula.

Reinhardt could only call on the
elite Panzergrenadier division,
Grossdeutschland.

As it began its advance, it ran
into 500 Soviet tanks of the
Front reserve.

By 1945, the -34/85 was
the main tank of the Red Army.

It retained many of the
characteristics of the earlier
T-34/76,

such as excellent
mobility and reliability.

The main improvement
was a powerful 85 mm gun,

housed in a larger three-man
turret. The size of the crew was
increased to 5.

About 80,000 of these tanks
were produced by the USSR

before production finally
came to an end in 1950.

They remained in service with
many armies around the world
until the 1990s.

After having defeated
the enemy s tank reserve,

Rokossovsky ordered forward
the 5th Guards Tank Army.

Reinhardt appealed to Hitler:

My Fuhrer! A captured enemy map
shows that the Russian tank army

is moving towards Danzig.
If it gets through,

we ll be attacked from the rear
and unable to defend ourselves.

Reinhardt requested
permission to retreat.

Nine days passed before Hitler
agreed. By then it was too late.

The Soviet tanks
had reached the Vistula Lagoon.

East Prussia had been cut off
from the Reich.

Chernyakhovsky 3rd Byelorussian
Front had arrived at Königsberg
from the east.

German Army Group Centre had
been chopped into three parts.

Bad weather prevented
the Soviet air force

attacking the retreating
columns of men and vehicles.

This allowed the Germans
to assemble improvised

fighting groups
around Konigsberg.

They were still able
to offer fierce resistance.

On 18th February 1945,
General Chernyakhovsky,

commander of the 3rd
Byelorussian Front,

was badly wounded
by shell fragments at Mehlsack.

He died the same day.
He was just 39 years old.

Marshal Vasilevsky arrived to
take command of Soviet troops in
East Prussia.

Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky was
the Chief of the Soviet General
Staff

for most of the war.
This meant he was responsible

for planning most of the major
Soviet operations on the Eastern
Front.

He was described by colleagues
as polite and diplomatic,

and he was trusted by Stalin.

However some said Vasilevsky
lacked the courage to stand up
to him.

Vasilevsky was twice decorated
as "Hero of the Soviet Union".

Gradually German resistance
in East Prussia was overcome.

The pocket south of Konigsberg
was first to fall.

Königsberg itself did not
surrender until April 1945.

In East Prussia the Red Army
faced fanatical German
resistance.

But Soviet firepower
was overwhelming.

In his memoirs, Vasilevsky
described the East Prussian
Offensive

as the most expensive in history
in terms of the consumption of
ammunition.

He estimated that
in this campaign,

the Red Army used over 15,000
railway carriages of ammunition.

The fortified city of Konigsberg

was finally pummelled into
submission by the Soviet
artillery.

Its surrender netted the Red
Army another 92,000 prisoners.

By this point, Marshal Zhukov
was putting the final touches

on his plan for the
assault on Berlin.

To the south, fighting continued
to rage in Czechoslovakia and
Hungary.

The 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts
battled elite SS divisions

as they advanced on Austria.

All had been made possible by
the success of Operation
Bagration.

In the south, too, the Red Army
had travelled a long and bitter
road to victory.

It had begun many miles
to the east in 1943,

as Soviet troops prepared
to cross the Dnieper River.

Before them, lay the
Battle of Ukraine