On the 1st Belorussian Front the advance proceeded at an equally fast pace. On January 16 Zhukov’s right having seized Modlin, where the Bug joins the Vistula, the Warsaw garrison of four incomplete battalions and a few artillery batteries sought and obtained O. K.H.’s approval to abandon the ruins of the city and escape encirclement. This common-sense decision put Hitler in a state of indescribable fury. In spite of Guderian’s vehement protests, he arrested three officers of the operations staff and had Guderian himself undergo a wearisome interrogation by Kaltenbrunner.
By January 19, the 1st and 2nd Guards Tank Armies had reached their first objectives. Konev advanced from Gosty-nin to Inowroclaw then to Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), On January 23, having covered 90 miles in four days, he occupied the latter without resistance. On the left, Colonel-General Bogdanov took a week to cover the 110 miles from Kutno to Poznan. The old fortress of Poznan, dating back to the Prussian era, had been hastily re-armed and put under the command of Major-General Mattern. The 2nd Guards Tank Army had better things to do, and so by-passed it and drove on; next stop Frankfurt on the Oder.
On the same day, the left of the 1st Belorussian Front took Lodz, and south of it advanced to make contact with the 1st Ukrainian Front. Remnants of retreating German units of Army Group "A” mingled with the advancing Russians. "The enemy,” Guderian said, "had virtually nothing in front of him. Only the moving pockets of XXIV and the 'Grossdeutschland’ Panzer Corps moved on westwards, fighting all the time, imperturbable, picking up a host of smaller units as they went along. Generals Nehring and von Saucken carried out a military exploit during these days every bit worthy to be recounted by a new Xenophon,”
Marshals Zhukov and Konev now had no difficulty in overcoming the resistance put up by Colonel-General Schorner to
> A Panther tank in East Prussia. The Panther was probably the best all-round tank of the war.
V Grenadiers of the Grossdeutschland Corps march towards the front, pulling a light anti-tank gun.
The Russian KV-85 heavy tank
Weight: 45 tons.
Crew: 5.
Armament: one 85-mm Ml 944 gun with 71 rounds and three 7.62-mm DT machine guns with 3,276 rounds.
Armour: hull nose and front 75-mm, sides 65-mm, and rear 60-mm; turret front, sides, and rear 110-mm, and mantlet 95-mm.
Engine : one V-2K inline, 600-hp.
Speed : 25 mph.
Range: 205 miles.
Length: 22 feet 6 inches Width : 11 feet 4 inches.
Height: 10 feet 10 inches.
A A column of Russian T-34j85 medium tanks arrives in Heiligenbeil, on the Frisches Haff, only about 25 miles from Kbnigsberg.
Slow their advance. On January 18. the 72nd Division was wiped out near Pio-trkow, then the 10th Panzer, 78th, and 291st Divisions succumbed trying to block the way into Silesia to the Soviet tanks. They were no more of an obstacle than the Oder would be. By the end of January the forward troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front had reached the Oder above Oppeln (Opole) and on either side of Breslau (Wroclaw) had established two vast bridgeheads at Brieg (Brzeg) and Steinau (Scinawa) on the right bank. This marked the beginning of the encirclement of the Silesian capital.
Further down the Oder, Generals Nehr-ing and von Saucken had managed to escape from the pursuing 1st Belorussian Front and had crossed back over the river at Glogau (Glogow). Zhukov’s two Guards Tank Armies covered a good 60 miles along the Poznah-Berlin axis, where two weak divisions, without artillery, had been sent to prop up what was left of the German 9th Army. Without halting at the small garrison of Schneidemuhl (Pila), which they by-passed, they reached the Oder at Kiistrin in the early days of February. This brought them opposite Frankfurt, around which bridgeheads on the left bank were soon established. And so Zhukov’s forward troops were now only 50 miles as the crow flies from the New Chancellery bunker.
World History
