{
 "slug": "vistula-oder",
 "title": "Vistula–Oder Offensive",
 "status": "draft",
 "era": "WWII and later",
 "date_text": "12 January – 2 February 1945",
 "start": "1945-01-12",
 "end": "1945-02-02",
 "war": "World War II",
 "cdb90_war": "WORLD WAR II (EASTERN FRONT)",
 "place": {
  "name": "Poland between the Vistula and the Oder: Baranów, Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków, Poznań and the Oder crossings at Kienitz and Küstrin",
  "lat": 51.8,
  "lon": 18.0,
  "wikidata": "Q159065"
 },
 "lede": "On 12 January 1945 Zhukov's and Konev's fronts broke out of their Vistula bridgeheads and in under three weeks drove about 480 km to the Oder, shattering the German defence in Poland and putting the Red Army 70 km from Berlin.",
 "result": "Decisive Soviet victory: German front in Poland destroyed, Oder reached",
 "result_cdb90": "attacker win",
 "belligerents": [
  {
   "role": "attacker",
   "name": "Soviet 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front (with the Polish 1st Army)",
   "commanders": [
    "Marshal Georgy Zhukov (1st Belorussian Front)",
    "Marshal Ivan Konev (1st Ukrainian Front)",
    "Pavel Rybalko (3rd Guards Tank Army)",
    "Mikhail Katukov (1st Guards Tank Army)",
    "Vasily Chuikov (8th Guards Army)",
    "Nikolai Berzarin (5th Shock Army)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 2203000,
    "low": 2112700,
    "high": 2203600,
    "source": "s1"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 193125,
    "low": 193125,
    "high": 194191,
    "source": "s2"
   }
  },
  {
   "role": "defender",
   "name": "German Army Group A (from 25 January renamed Army Group Centre): 4th Panzer Army, 9th Army and 17th Army, with reinforcing Panzer corps",
   "commanders": [
    "Generaloberst Josef Harpe (until 20 January)",
    "Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner (from 20 January)",
    "Fritz-Hubert Gräser (4th Panzer Army)",
    "Smilo von Lüttwitz, then Theodor Busse (9th Army)",
    "Friedrich Schulz (17th Army)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 450000,
    "low": 450000,
    "high": 800000,
    "source": "s1"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": null,
    "low": 626000,
    "high": 735000,
    "source": "s2"
   }
  }
 ],
 "sections": {
  "background": "By the end of 1944 the Red Army held bridgeheads over the Vistula at Magnuszew and Puławy, south of Warsaw, and at Sandomierz (the Baranów bridgehead), further south. These were the springboards for the winter offensive. German intelligence under Reinhard Gehlen reported enormous Soviet superiority, roughly 11:1 in infantry, 7:1 in tanks and 20:1 in artillery and aircraft, but Hitler dismissed the report as the greatest bluff since Genghis Khan. The army's own estimate was a Soviet superiority of 3:1; English Wikipedia gives the real ratio as about 5:1.\n\nHitler had meanwhile shifted the 6th Panzer Army to Hungary for Operation Frühlingserwachen in Hungary. He also placed the two German defence lines so close together that both fell within range of the Soviet artillery. Army Group A under Josef Harpe held the front with the 9th Army around Warsaw, the 4th Panzer Army in the Baranów salient and the 17th Army in Upper Silesia.\n\nThe Soviet start date was brought forward from 20 to 12 January, because of a forecast thaw that could hamper tank movement. The aim was no less than to reach the Oder, about 480 km away, and so to put Zhukov and Konev within striking distance of Berlin.",
  "forces": "The Soviet side concentrated 163 divisions: about 2.2 million men, 4,529 tanks and about 5,000 aircraft, according to English Wikipedia. Marshal Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front held the Warsaw sector and the Magnuszew and Puławy bridgeheads. Its armies included Berzarin's 5th Shock, Chuikov's 8th Guards, the 69th, 47th, the Polish 1st Army, Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army and Bogdanov's 2nd Guards Tank Army. Marshal Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front, from the Baranów bridgehead, had Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army, Lelyushenko's 4th Tank Army and the 59th, 60th and 21st Armies.\n\nGerman Army Group A had about 450,000 men, 4,100 guns and 1,150 tanks in the English Wikipedia's figures, though other sources put its strength up to 560,000 or 800,000. It was outnumbered about five to one in the Wikipedia account, and its air strength is given as 270 or 630 aircraft against about 5,000 Soviet. The 9th Army (Smilo von Lüttwitz, then Theodor Busse from 20 January) covered Warsaw; the 4th Panzer Army (Fritz-Hubert Gräser) held the Baranów salient with the XLII Corps, the XXIV Panzer Corps and the XLVIII Panzer Corps; the 17th Army (Friedrich Schulz) held Upper Silesia. Its main armoured force was the XXIV Panzer Corps under Walther Nehring, with Panzerkorps Grossdeutschland later sent from East Prussia.",
  "course": "**12–14 January: the breakthrough.** The attack opened from the Baranów bridgehead at 04:35 with a massive bombardment, and Konev's front broke the German 4th Panzer Army, which was largely destroyed. Zhukov's front attacked at 08:30 from the Magnuszew and Puławy bridgeheads. The 69th Army took Radom, the 2nd Guards Tank Army pushed towards Sochaczew and the 1st Guards Tank Army was sent to the Pilica crossings and on to Łódź. On 14 January Konev forced the Nida and advanced towards Radomsko and the Warthe.\n\n**15–19 January: the German reserve fails.** On 15 January, against Guderian's advice, Hitler ordered Panzerkorps Grossdeutschland from East Prussia to the breach. It detrained at Łódź before reaching its objective and was forced to withdraw. On 16 January the XXIV Panzer Corps abandoned Kielce, and Colonel von Bonin of the Operations Branch authorised Army Group A to leave Warsaw, overriding Hitler; he was arrested three days later. Warsaw fell on 17 January; Hitler sacked the commanders of the 9th Army and XXXVI Panzer Corps. The 8th Guards Army reached Łódź on 18 January and took it on 19 January. Konev's 59th and 60th Armies and the 4th Guards Tank Corps encircled and took Kraków undamaged on 19 January. On 17 January Konev had been given new objectives, Breslau to the north and Upper Silesia to the south by way of Kraków.\n\n**20–27 January: the race to the Oder.** Schörner replaced Harpe on 20 January. Rybalko's tank army swung south along the upper Oder to cut off the 17th Army, whose commander Schulz asked on 25 January to pull his roughly 100,000 men out of the Katowice salient; Schörner refused twice and gave permission on the night of 27 January, leaving Konev the area undamaged. On 22 January the XXIV Panzer Corps reached the Warthe, linked with Grossdeutschland and crossed the Oder after a journey of about 350 km. On 25 January Zhukov's main force passed Poznań heading west, and the 8th Guards Army began fighting into the city on 26 January; it was taken only after prolonged fighting. On 27 January Konev's 322nd Rifle Division and the 60th Army liberated Auschwitz.\n\n**28 January – 2 February: the Oder.** The Soviet spearheads reached the Oder at the end of January, and on 31 January a unit of the 5th Shock Army crossed the ice and took Kienitz, after which Berlin lay only 69 km away. Stavka declared the operation complete on 2 February. The CDB90 engagement runs to 4 February.",
  "aftermath": "The Red Army had advanced about 480 km in a little over two weeks, nearly 30 km a day on average (my arithmetic from Wikipedia's figures), with 35 German divisions destroyed according to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia as cited by Russian Wikipedia. Auschwitz was liberated on 27 January, and the SS forced prisoners from camps on death marches westward in the bitter winter; at least 250,000 people were marched in March and April alone, estimates Wikipedia. Ethnic Germans began to flee west.\n\nZhukov wanted to go straight on to Berlin, 69 km from his bridgehead, but Stavka halted the advance because his northern flank was exposed in Pomerania and German counterattacks (Operation Solstice) threatened it. Pomerania had to be cleared first, and the assault on Berlin was delayed until April. Whether Berlin could in fact have been taken in February is argued; the sources read here merely report the decision. Hitler's reaction was to sack generals and arrest von Bonin, and on 25 January he renamed Army Group A as Army Group Centre.\n\nThe casualty figures are murky and partly contradictory. The Soviet loss is about 193,000 in Krivosheev's tables as cited by Russian Wikipedia; the German loss is known only from Soviet claims of 626,000 to 735,000, including about 150,000 prisoners. The operation destroyed the German front in Poland and brought the war to the borders of Germany itself.",
  "wargaming": "Vistula–Oder is an operational game rather than a tactical one. A hex of 10 or 20 km and a corps or army counter for the Soviets covers it: the board runs from the Vistula to the Oder, about 480 km, in a few turns of two or three days. Its interest is the speed of an exploitation: Soviet tank armies race through a single breach while the German player, short of reserves, tries to build a stop line at Łódź, the Warthe or the Oder.\n\nThe key decisions are Hitler's. The German player may be bound by orders to hold ground, to keep the 6th Panzer Army away in Hungary and to send Grossdeutschland piecemeal, and the temptation to ignore them is a rule in itself; the sources show von Bonin overruling the order to hold Warsaw and being arrested for it. For the Soviet player, the interesting problem is supply and the flanks: Zhukov's northern flank against Pomerania, Konev's southern against the Upper Silesian industrial area. The thaw is a weather variable that gave rise to the early start.\n\nThe central what-if is whether Zhukov could have crossed the Oder and gone for Berlin in February, which can be tested by letting the player ignore the Pomeranian flank at the risk of a German counterattack. Fortress cities (Poznań, Breslau) give a second set of tasks, since bypassed garrisons tie up Soviet armies."
 },
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   "caption": "The Soviet offensive to the Oder, January–March 1945.",
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   "caption": "The Soviet offensive to the Oder, 12 January to 30 March 1945.",
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   "file": "File:Lodz liberation2.jpg",
   "kind": "photo",
   "caption": "Residents of Łódź greet Soviet tank crews entering the city, 1945. The vehicle is an ISU-122.",
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  {
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   "kind": "portrait",
   "caption": "Marshal Georgy Zhukov, commander of the 1st Belorussian Front.",
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  },
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   "caption": "Marshal Ivan Konev, commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front.",
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   "caption": "German officers arriving to negotiate the capitulation of Festung Breslau, 6 May 1945.",
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 "sources": [
  {
   "id": "s1",
   "title": "Vistula–Oder offensive (English Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula%E2%80%93Oder_offensive",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s2",
   "title": "Висло-Одерская операция (Russian Wikipedia), infobox losses citing G. F. Krivosheev and strengths citing the Great Soviet Encyclopedia",
   "url": "https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Висло-Одерская_операция",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s3",
   "title": "David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler (University Press of Kansas, 1995), cited by English Wikipedia and not seen",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s4",
   "title": "Christopher Duffy, Red Storm on the Reich: The Soviet March on Germany, 1945 (Routledge, 1991), cited by English Wikipedia and not seen",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s5",
   "title": "Medical service of the Red Army in the Vistula–Oder strategic offensive (Военно-медицинский журнал), seen only as a search-result snippet",
   "url": "https://journals.eco-vector.com/0026-9050/article/view/75037",
   "kind": "article"
  }
 ],
 "cdb90": [
  511
 ],
 "order": 215,
 "url": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/vistula-oder/",
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 "oob_lwtv": [],
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 "orbat": null,
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