On the 30th day of the offensive, Moscow published the first figures from Konev’s and Zhukov’s victories: 70 German divisions destroyed or cut to pieces; 295,000 men killed and 86,000 taken prisoner;
15,000 guns and mortars, 34,000 vehicles, and 2,955 tanks destroyed or captured. If it is realised that the mobile reserves behind Army Group "A” consisted of five Panzer and two Panzer grenadier divisions, the last figure seems to bear no relation to reality. As for the ratio of killed to prisoners, as Alexander Werth has pointed out, it belies the statements of the Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehren-burg, who described to his readers "Germans running away like rabbits’’. And Werth also recalls the confidential statement of an officer from the front who said to him "In some places their resistance reminds me of Sebastopol: those German soldiers can be quite heroic at times.” At the same time, Zhukov was in front of Kiistrin and 335 miles from his point of departure, whilst Konev in Silesia was 300 miles from his. Logistic considerations now became of prime importance to the two marshals’ tank armies, especially as they had greatly outdistanced the infantry following them on foot. And so February, March, and early April were devoted to small-scale operations only, though these were important as they led to the mopping up of East Prussia and the deployment of the Red Army on what is now called the Oder-Neisse line, ready for the final offensive.
World History
