Bagration 1944: The Destruction of Army Group Center (Praeger Illustrated Military History)

On June 22, 1944, three years to the day after Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, the Red Army launched a massive offensive in Byelorussia. Code named Operation Bagration, this campaign climaxed five weeks later with the Red Army at the gates of Warsaw. The Wehrmacht's Army Group Center was routed, a total of 17 Wehrmacht divisions were utterly destroyed, and over 50 other German divisions were shattered. It was the single most calamitous defeat of the German armed forces in World War II.

On June 22, 1944, three years to the day after Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, the Red Army launched a massive offensive in Byelorussia. Code named Operation Bagration, this campaign climaxed five weeks later with the Red Army at the gates of Warsaw. The Wehrmacht's Army Group Center was routed, a total of 17 Wehrmacht divisions were utterly destroyed, and over 50 other German divisions were shattered. It was the single most calamitous defeat of the German armed forces in World War II.

In many respects Operation Bagration was the 1941 Operation Barbarossa invasion in reverse, fought over many of the same battlefields. The Wehrmacht's Army Group Center was routed, a total of 17 Wehrmacht divisions were utterly destroyed, and over 50 other German divisions were shattered. It was the single most calamitous defeat of the German armed forces in World War II, costing the Wehrmacht more men and material than the cataclysm at Stalingrad 16 months earlier. It was all the more catastrophic because it was timed to coincide with D-Day and the Allied liberation of France. This important Russian campaign is little appreciated in the West, overshadowed by the Normandy campaign.