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Between 1941 and 1944, a huge duel was fought between the Army Group Centre and the Red Army, German Army Group Centre was at the core of Hitler's push through Russia, charged with the capture of Moscow by way of Minsk.
The outcome of this would prove decisive for the development of World War II, from the easy victories during the first advance into Russia, to the first setback outside Moscow, and on to the terrifying Russian advance in 1944.
The most formidable concentration of force on the eastern front, Army Group Centre was the dagger-thrust at the heart of the soviet state; it's success would be inextricably linked to the outcome of the whole campaign.
Indecision, the unforgiving Russian winter and the defences around Moscow would force the retreat and ultimately the defeat of Army Group Centre.
The Battle of Kursk signalled the beginning of the end for the Third Reich, this is the captivating story of the war in the middle sector of the Eastern Front.
Between 1941 and 1944, a huge duel was fought between the Army Group Centre and the Red Army, German Army Group Centre was at the core of Hitler's push through Russia, charged with the capture of Moscow by way of Minsk.
The outcome of this would prove decisive for the development of World War II, from the easy victories during the first advance into Russia, to the first setback outside Moscow, and on to the terrifying Russian advance in 1944.
The most formidable concentration of force on the eastern front, Army Group Centre was the dagger-thrust at the heart of the soviet state; it's success would be inextricably linked to the outcome of the whole campaign.
Indecision, the unforgiving Russian winter and the defences around Moscow would force the retreat and ultimately the defeat of Army Group Centre.
The Battle of Kursk signalled the beginning of the end for the Third Reich, this is the captivating story of the war in the middle sector of the Eastern Front.
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LearningTranscript
00:03During the titanic struggle between Hitler and Stalin, there was always one prize which the Russian forces valued above all
00:11others.
00:11That prize was the destruction of Army Group Center, the huge mass of men and equipment which was aimed like
00:19a knife at the heart of Stalin's Soviet Union.
00:30In December 1941, Army Group Center came tantalizingly close to capturing Moscow, the capital city of the Soviet Empire, and
00:38it was to take years of bitter fighting before the men of the Red Army could claim victory.
00:45In that time, they were to come perilously close to their own destruction.
01:29Army Group Center
01:36As its name suggests, Army Group Center was the force responsible for the middle sector of the front, formed by
01:43the three great army groups, which Hitler unleashed upon Russia on June the 22nd, 1941.
02:15Army Group Center
02:18Army Group North was to advance on Leningrad, Army Group Center was to drive straight towards Moscow by way of
02:25Minsk and Smolensk, and Army Group South was to thrust towards Odessa, on the Black Sea, and onto the Crimea.
02:34For the great offensive of June the 22nd, Army Group North, Army Group North was formed from four powerful formations,
02:44the 4th Army under von Kluge, the 9th Army under General Strauss, the 2nd Panzer Group under General Guderian, and
02:52the 3rd Panzer Group, commanded by General Hoth.
02:55Air support was provided by Luftflotte II under Field Marshal Kesselring.
03:01Army Group Center
03:03Army Group Center was the most formidable German concentration which took part in the Soviet-German war.
03:09It was commanded by Field Marshal von Bock, who, before the onset of the German attack on Russia, had expressed
03:18his misgivings about the whole Barbarossa plan.
03:20It was very realistic and very, very sensible. But as a strategic commander, he was obviously very able.
03:28Field Marshal Fyodor von Bock had commanded German Army Group B during the successful advance into France in May-June
03:36of 1940, and was now given what might be regarded as the plum job for Operation Barbarossa, namely Command of
03:43Army Group Center.
03:44He was an experienced and able man from a traditional German military school, who had a particular ability to reconcile
03:51the differences of his more cautious and impetuous military commanders.
03:56He was ably backed up by men such as Heinz Guderian, the commander of the 2nd Panzer Group, possibly the
04:02most famous German military commander of the 20th century.
04:17Army Group Center was a larger formation than the forces which comprised the other two Army Groups.
04:23It had 50 German divisions, as opposed to 39 in Army Group South and only 29 in Army Group North.
04:32It could deploy 910 aircraft, as opposed to 684 Army Group South and 434 Army Group North.
04:42The two panzer groups under von Bock's control in Army Group Center also claimed the lion's share of the tanks
04:48which were allocated to the great attack.
04:51Some 1,700 machines were available to von Bock, as opposed to 1,000 for von Rundstedt with Army Group
04:57South and 650 in Army Group North with von Lieb.
05:01In addition, Army Group Center could rely upon the backup provided by 3,000 artillery pieces.
05:08From that point of view, then, Army Group Center was very, very well served.
05:13Well, it had the key role to play.
05:15And it continued to have the key role to play right until 1944.
05:35In 1941, the success of Army Group Center was the key to the success for the whole campaign.
05:43If they had succeeded in their objectives, and they came very near to doing so, there is a very real
05:49possibility that the war in the East could have been won for Hitler in 1941.
05:55Army Group Center was the dagger thrust at the heart of the Soviet state, and the men of the Red
06:01Army had to fight heroically to avoid a mortal wound.
06:06It was a dagger which the Russians tried desperately to remove.
06:10There was no doubt about it that whichever way the Russians or the Red Army or Soviet strategy moved, it
06:16faced Army Group Center in one form or another.
06:20And it's fair to say, I think, that the underlying theme of the Soviet-German War, the Russo-German War,
06:27is an attempt to destroy Army Group Center.
06:30What the Russians did, they would move around the flanks to the north and to the south, but still, there
06:34was Army Group Center.
06:41The Army High Command, as represented by HALDA, Army Group Center, was of decisive strategic importance.
06:47Because HALDA and many others regarded Moscow, the capital city of the Soviet Union, as providing the best opportunity of
06:55delivering a knockout blow to the Soviet Union, which would enable them to win in one campaign.
07:01Army Group Center was therefore to be the decisive instrument which would put this strategic plan into fruition.
07:06Given the political, economic, rail, road and armament significance of Moscow to the Soviet Union, HALDA believed that the Red
07:15Army would be forced to conform to the strategic initiative launched by Army Group Center.
07:20And in its defense of Moscow, the Red Army would be destroyed in a battle of annihilation, enabling Army Group
07:26Center to occupy, take Moscow, and deprive the Soviet Union of the ability to organize its remaining armed forces with
07:33sufficient effectiveness to stand any chance of defeating the German army.
07:39In the early days of the campaign, it certainly looked as if Army Group Center would succeed in its objective.
07:46Operation Barbarossa was unleashed on the unprepared forces of the Red Army on Sunday, June the 22nd, 1941.
07:59In the opening days of the campaign, the two panzer groups, under Hoth and Guderian, completed the encirclement of a
08:06huge hall of confused and virtually leaderless Russians near Bialystok, then surged onwards towards Minsk.
08:15So great was the confusion among the Russian command system that absolute chaos prevailed in most sectors.
08:22The only prolonged resistance during the frontier battles was in the city of Brest-Litovsk.
08:28Here, the garrison of the citadel mounted a stubborn defense for eight days after the main front had rolled on
08:34towards the next objective.
08:37It was only after the commitment of a full infantry division and a Stuka attack with 1,800 kilogram blockbuster
08:45bombs that the citadel fell to the Germans.
09:057,000 of these brave defenders marched into the brutal world of captivity, which few would survive.
09:13This contemporary newsreel shows the garrison of Brest-Litovsk surrendering to the forces of Army Group Centre.
09:26The Soviet theory, more or less, was as follows, that there would be some time which would elapse between a
09:34declaration of war and then the beginning of operations.
09:37The second thing that would happen, there would be a meeting engagement.
09:40Then the third thing that would happen is, of course, there would be an advance by the enemy, but the
09:46Soviet forces would move forward and restore the situation.
09:49Well, of course, there was no declaration of war, nor was there indeed an ultimatum.
09:53The attack achieved complete tactical surprise, and that is true.
09:59When discussing the condition of the Red Army forces at a facing Army Group Centre in June 1941, one cannot
10:07ignore the impact of the military purges that Stalin had inflicted upon the Red Army in the period 1936-38.
10:16To put not too fine a point on it, Stalin had entirely decapitated the officer corps of the Red Army.
10:24Two thirds of all officers above the rank of Major or above were either imprisoned or executed.
10:30Those that remained in position were, to put not too fine a point on it, scared witless.
10:36They were unaccustomed to use their own initiative and were reluctant to do so, even if invited.
10:44One saw the Red Army, not exactly hapless, that's not true, but caught between so many different circumstances that it
10:53was impossible for it to make a coherent response.
11:00The Red Army had a great number of men, but the equipment that it used tended to be outdated and
11:06obsolete.
11:06This was particularly the case with regard to tanks and aircraft.
11:10In terms of signals equipment, the Red Army's provision on the Western Front was really quite appalling.
11:16It simply did not have the communications equipment to enable it to fight the fast-moving manoeuvre battle that the
11:22Germans specialised in,
11:24and they would be required to be able to fight effectively in order to defend their country properly and achieve
11:30their mission.
11:30Therefore, it can be concluded that in terms of leadership, position, equipment, tanks, aircraft and communications, the Russian forces facing
11:40Army Group Centre were in no way a match for their German counterparts.
11:52After the success at Minsk, Army Group Centre surged onwards towards Smolensk, where a further huge haul of prisoners was
12:00taken outside of the city.
12:02Despite the enormous reverses which the Red Army had suffered, the Germans were disconcerted to find that Soviet resistance was
12:10beginning to become tougher as the campaign progressed.
12:23The Germans were confronted with another and equally unpleasant surprise at this time.
12:29The first Russian T-34 tanks appeared during the Battle of Vyazma.
12:34At Berea, the Russian tanks simply drove straight through the 7th Infantry Division, onto the artillery positions, and literally ran
12:42over the guns.
12:43The effect on the infantryman's morale was devastating.
12:48This marked the beginning of what came to be called the Tank Terror.
12:53In 1941, the T-34 was impervious to the infantry's anti-tank weapons.
12:58At that time, the German infantry was equipped only with 37mm and 50mm anti-tank guns, but they had no
13:06effect on the T-34.
13:08A gun of at least 75mm calibre was needed, but it first had to be designed and built.
13:16In the meantime, only 88mm anti-aircraft guns could be relied upon and those were hurriedly pressed into the anti
13:24-tank role.
13:32By the end of July, Army Group Centre had suffered 74,000 casualties, against which it had received only 23
13:40,000 replacements.
13:42An ominous portent in the first month of a campaign which was to last for four years.
13:52The rapid advances of June and July began to slow as August dragged into September, and still there was no
14:00sign of the Russian resistance slackening.
14:11By the beginning of July 1941, it was clear that the initial plan of Operation Barbarossa had failed.
14:20It had not proved possible to destroy the Soviet armies.
14:25They were badly battered and heavily defeated, but they had not been eliminated.
14:33Despite its undoubtable success in the field, Army Group Centre had failed to achieve the rapid capture of Moscow.
14:40At this crucial juncture, Hitler chose to intervene in the overall strategic plan.
14:48He decided that General Heinz Guderian and his second Panzer Group should be diverted south to assist the German Army
14:55Group fighting there,
14:56instead of concentrating on the final drive towards Moscow.
15:01With hindsight, it was to prove a disastrous intervention.
15:05Although at the time, Hitler appeared to have been vindicated.
15:10As seen here, in the newsreels of the time, Guderian and his tanks were able to penetrate deep into Soviet
15:17territory.
15:18They were to contribute to the huge victory when they combined with the Panzer forces of Army Group South, under
15:24von Kleist,
15:25to produce a stunning encirclement which produced a vast haul of prisoners.
15:31This footage shows the link-up between the tanks of Guderian, with the white G, and von Kleist, whose vehicles
15:38are marked with the white K.
15:41Guderian had been one of the most able theorists of German armoured warfare during the 1930s.
15:47And in 1939, in the invasion of Poland, and in 1940, he had also approved himself of one of the
15:53most able commanders of German armoured formations in the field.
15:56He had commanded 19th Panzer Corps with distinction, particularly at the crossing the River Meuse at Sedan in May 1940.
16:03But he was also an impetuous and somewhat outspoken individual who seemed to have great difficulty in sustaining cordial relations
16:11with more or less any senior commander he came into contact with.
16:17As one of the architects of the Blitzkrieg strategy, Guderian was not fooled by the enormous hall of prisoners in
16:24the Kiev pocket.
16:25He knew that the essence of Blitzkrieg lay in a concerted thrust towards a single objective.
16:31And that objective could only be Moscow.
16:38He was not backward in making his views known to Hitler.
16:41And the furious response of the Führer sowed the seeds of the bad feeling between them, which would lead to
16:47Guderian's dismissal in December 1941.
16:53There really was a problem about objectives.
16:57There was a question of investing Leningrad, that's the first one.
17:01The second thing was, from Hitler's point of view, what would be the most impressive and urgent objective?
17:11And the answer was, of course, to move to the south, that is, to move into Ukraine and possibly even
17:18further.
17:19So that, I think the argument really is that there was an argument about changing objectives with respect to Operation
17:27Barbarossa.
17:32The confusion with regard to the overall strategic objectives from Barbarossa really stems to a fundamental disagreement between Adolf Hitler
17:40and the chief of the general staff, Franz Halder, about what was to be the strategic objective of the campaign.
17:46Both Hitler and the German High Command agreed that this was to be a war for living space, a war
17:52of annihilation and was to be over as quickly as possible.
17:55They disagreed, however, as to what the best objective to achieve this was.
18:00Halder and the High Command believed it should be Moscow.
18:02Hitler, on the other hand, tended to oscillate between the acquisition of economic and agricultural resources in the south and
18:09the taking of Leningrad in the north.
18:11Halder and the German High Command tended to persist in their belief that Moscow was the decisive objective of the
18:18campaign and should be.
18:21But in many respects, although there were Barbarossa directives, it appears that the front commanders, or the panzer group commanders,
18:30such as Guderian and others,
18:32they didn't by any means improvise, but they interpreted the plan the way they thought it should go.
18:37And for that, by the way, later on, the next commander of Army Group Centre suggested they should be dismissed
18:46for this.
18:49Despite the never-ending losses to both men and machinery, and the tenacious resistance of the Red Army,
18:56Army Group Centre continued to advance deeper into Russia, but the real prize still eluded them.
19:03Finally, in October, the stage was set for the final drive on Moscow, Operation Typhoon.
19:16In November, the chief of the general staff summoned the chiefs of staff of the three Army Groups,
19:21and also of the armies engaged on the Eastern Front, to attend a conference at Orsha on the Neiper.
19:28The fateful question to be discussed was whether the German armies in the East should now dig in along the
19:34line of the present front,
19:35and there await the renewal of decent campaigning weather in the spring,
19:39or whether the three Army Groups should continue to attack during the winter months.
19:48As regards Army Group Centre, the division of opinion was very simple.
19:53On the one hand, there was the attractive prospect of reaching the Kremlin.
19:57On the other, doubts as to the ability of troops to complete this final thrust in view of their weakened
20:04condition.
20:08After this conference, immediate and detailed discussions took place with the actual commanders in the field.
20:15Field Marshal von Kluge repeatedly visited his frontline units,
20:20and even saw the opinions of privates and NCOs in the frontline trenches.
20:24For days, the commanders deliberated,
20:27but the final decision was that one last attempt would be made,
20:31one final attack launched, with Moscow as the objective.
20:43There are a number of great battles and campaigns,
20:46which can justifiably lay claim to being one of the turning points of World War II.
20:52Operation Typhoon must surely rank highly among them.
20:56With Guderian and his second panzer group now returned from its exploits in the south,
21:01Army Group Centre gathered all of its strength together for one last lunge at Moscow.
21:07It was an attempt that very nearly succeeded,
21:10despite all of the factors which were arranged against it.
21:14The offensive began in the clinging mud of the Russian rainy season,
21:19the Rasputitsa, which gave way to the bitter cold of the worst Russian winter for 100 years.
21:33Despite all these hazards and the tenacious resistance of the Red Army,
21:37Army Group Centre continued to crawl its way towards Stalin's capital.
21:45By the first week of December, German troops reached the outskirts of Moscow.
21:51They were only fifteen miles from the Kremlin,
21:54and the spires of the Citadel could be seen in the distance.
21:58But they may as well have been a thousand miles away.
22:01The Wehrmacht had advanced as far as it would go.
22:11Men and equipment were worn out.
22:14Huge losses from combat crippled the fighting spirit of the Army,
22:18and the grip of a ferocious winter claimed thousands of casualties from frostbite.
22:24It was a close run affair,
22:26but the defences around Moscow proved too strong for the weakened men of Army Group Centre.
22:32Typhoon had failed.
22:36Typhoon was very important.
22:38It was the climactic, if you like, of Operation Barbarossa,
22:42the decision to drive for Moscow.
22:46It was clearly a turning point in operations on the Eastern Front.
22:53The problem was, it was left very late to launch the attack on Moscow.
23:00There were problems with the weather, there were problems with supply.
23:04So while I think Operation Typhoon must be accorded a very significant place
23:09in the evolution of the strategic circumstances of the first part of the Soviet-German war,
23:16I would have hardly thought that it ranks as a major turning point.
23:20Nevertheless, the failure of Operation Typhoon should not be underestimated in its implications.
23:27For Germany, in simple terms, it represented something of a strategic disaster.
23:31A basic imperative, Operation Barbarossa,
23:35was that the German army was to destroy the Soviet Union within one campaign.
23:39Clearly, with the failure of Typhoon, this they had failed to do.
23:44In many respects, the most decisive implications of the failure of Operation Typhoon relate to Great Britain,
23:51whose grand strategic position was utterly transformed.
23:55In October 1941, Britain's only land ally, Russia, appeared on the verge of complete defeat.
24:02Britain appeared as though it was going to be returned to a situation it had faced in June 1940,
24:06after the Battle of Britain, when, although not defeated, she had no real prospect of victory.
24:12Her situation, due to the failure of Typhoon, was transformed.
24:16Equally, in December 1941, just two or three days after the failure of Typhoon,
24:22the United States enters the war alongside the Soviet Union and Great Britain.
24:27This makes the war a very different one to the one that existed previously.
24:33On the 5th of December 1941, a powerful Russian counterattack under General Zhukov
24:39threw back the German front lines and a headlong retreat began.
24:46Hitler flew into a rage and personally assumed direct command of Army Group Centre on the 19th of December.
24:54As was his custom, he immediately issued an order that there would be no further retreats
24:59and that every man was to fight where he stood.
25:16Miraculously, Army Group Centre was able to cobble together enough of a defence to halt the Russian offensive.
25:22It was roughly on the line that the Germans had occupied in October.
25:27Some historians have argued that Hitler saved the Army Group by his resolute order to stand firm.
25:32The debate continues to this day.
25:37If no orders had been given for Army Group Centre to stand fast, the chances are that it would have
25:44disintegrated.
25:45It was the first time that the Wehrmacht had essentially been defeated.
25:52The second thing is that such were the circumstances of Soviet operations, thrusting and cutting and slicing and moving,
26:02that without an order to hold fast, to hold the ground and stand fast,
26:07it's arguable that large slices or large portions of Army Group Centre would simply have disappeared.
26:14Hitler's order for the German troops to stand firm and offer fanatical resistance to their Russian opponents did not of
26:22itself ensure the survival of Army Group Centre.
26:26It did make quite a significant contribution, and this is something that some historians have tended to overlook,
26:33because it reinforced the faith that the ordinary German soldier had in the abilities of Adolf Hitler at a time
26:42when their confidence in the ability of their Army commanders and Army Group commanders was beginning to wane.
26:48However, the true reasons for the survival of Army Group Centre lay elsewhere, namely in Russian mistakes, and in particular
26:56Stalin's over-ambition.
26:59It was now Stalin's turn to commit a major error.
27:04Stalin ordered the launch of an offensive which broke up on the German lines on the 7th of January.
27:12This time, there was to be no repeat of the successes from December.
27:18Against the advice of his senior military commander, General Zhukov, on the 20th of December 1941, Stalin widened the objectives
27:28of Russian forces at Moscow to the encirclement and annihilation of Army Group Centre as a whole.
27:34Zhukov and his fellow commanders had wanted to restrict the Russian objectives merely to the pushing back of Army Group
27:41Centre because they understood that the troops did not have the skill, the mobility, the equipment, the numbers or the
27:48stamina to achieve the wider, more ambitious objective.
27:53As Army Group Centre had withdrawn towards its bases, the army had effectively become stronger and the great Russian offensive
28:01failed to capture a single one of the strategic objectives.
28:07Although there was fierce fighting, the Red Army was approaching the limits of its strength and towns such as Bryansk,
28:14Orel and Kursk remained firmly in the hands of Army Group Centre.
28:21Once more, affairs in the centre lay in the balance.
28:36With the beginning of the summer campaign of 1942, the world held its breath.
28:46The universal expectation was that the battle for Moscow would be resumed with the bulk of the struggle once more
28:52falling upon the shoulders of Army Group Centre.
28:59But it was not to be.
29:02Hitler completely outfoxed Stalin by a surprise shift in the strategic direction of the entire campaign.
29:09Rather than press on for Moscow, as his commanders advised, Hitler instead ordered the German Army Group South to take
29:17the initiative in order to capture the oil fields of the Caucasus.
29:23With this fateful order, the events which led to the fall of the Crimea and the disaster at Stalingrad were
29:30put in place.
29:34For most of 1942, the role of Army Group Centre was a subsidiary one to Army Group South.
29:40That is not to say that there was not some serious fighting in the sector of Army Group Centre.
29:45For the whole duration of the war, the Russian front could never really be described as quiet at any time.
29:55The fighting tended to pause briefly during the worst of their muddy seasons, but it would reach an unbelievable intensity
30:02in both winter and summer.
30:07It was this remorseless action which characterised the Russian front as one of the most brutal wars in history.
30:16In 1942, Army Group Centre again played its crucial role, and its role being that it held the entire German
30:28strategic front together.
30:31What it had to do, the first job, which was very difficult and very dangerous, was to clean up, and
30:36I think that's the right word,
30:37some of the mess that had been left by the Soviet winter offensive, certainly in the north and also in
30:43the centre,
30:44where the Russians had made quite deep penetration.
30:46However, it survived this trial, and indeed I think it's fair to say, relative to Army Group South in particular,
30:53that the period April to October 1942 was one of relative quiet on the Eastern Front Foot Army Group Centre,
31:00whereby it contended itself with what one might call minor tactical missions,
31:05in order to tidy up the front and stabilise its position 100 miles, 150 miles west of Moscow.
31:13While the dramatic events which led to the Battle of Stalingrad were being played out in the south,
31:19Army Group Centre had its own problems to wrestle with.
31:22In spite of all the drama, if you like, and the enormous panorama of the Battle of Stalingrad,
31:29the real Russian intention was to attack Army Group Centre.
31:45There were more Soviet forces in November 1942 committed against Army Group Centre than there were Soviet forces actually in
31:52Stalingrad.
31:53Stalingrad was at the side, as it were. It was again Army Group Centre, which was vital, even for the
31:58first of the counter-offensive moves.
32:00And the very interesting thing is, if you examine German intelligence reports, Galen's intelligence reports for October and November,
32:06he correctly saw that the main Soviet thrust would be against Army Group Centre.
32:12So the manner in which the Battle of Stalingrad develops is another question.
32:16What remains to be examined in great detail is precisely what were the Soviet's strategic objectives in 1942.
32:23Was Stalingrad a debate or was Stalingrad a trap?
32:45If you look at it even more closely, you'll see that the way Zhukov handled it, Stalingrad was a very
32:51good foil to his strategic plan to assault Army Group Centre.
32:55In other words, Stalingrad drew German forces away from Army Group Centre, and that's true as well.
33:01So from that point of view, there was almost a manipulative element in Soviet strategy.
33:19During the summer and autumn of 1942, a series of fierce battles raged around the city of Ryzev.
33:26Army Group Centre had to fight tenaciously to avoid disaster and only managed to hold the Russian attacks at bay
33:34by committing the last reserves to the front, followed by cooks, clerks and even military postmen.
33:44In the end, they managed to hold the front, but only just. Still, there was to be no rest.
33:53The quiet of October exploded in November 1942 when the Russian formations to the west of Moscow launched Operation Mars.
34:02A ferocious Russian assault was launched on Velikai Luki.
34:06So Operation Mars opened late in October 1942. It involved two Soviet fronts, the Western Front and the Kalinin Front.
34:17The idea was to encircle the German Ninth Army in the Rzhov salient.
34:22At the centre of this, or the real focus of attention, was the small town of Velikai Luki, with a
34:29population of about 80,000-90,000.
34:31The importance of Velikai Luki was that it was a strategic rail centre and was really at the apex of
34:38a very important strategic triangle,
34:41which is to say that is where the right flank of Army Group Centre met the left flank of Army
34:49Group North.
34:50The join between the two Army Groups was always likely to be a vulnerable spot.
34:56During the long winter months of 1942 into 1943, a supreme effort was required by the forces of both the
35:03Army Group North and Army Group Centre to prevent a disaster at Velikai Luki.
35:08In December 1942, the Russian Third Shock Army, under the command of Colonel General Galitsky, attempted and succeeded in encircling
35:18the German garrison in Velikai Luki.
35:21The group, the German troops inside the pocket, all 7,000 of them, under General Graf von der Chavalerie, requested
35:30permission to immediately break out German lines to the west.
35:34This was denied by Adolf Hitler.
35:37In subsequent weeks, the Russian formations managed to split the German pocket within the town, with some German troops being
35:45trapped in the citadel or Kremlin of the town of Velikai Luki and others being trapped in the eastern suburbs
35:52of the town.
35:55But unfortunately, by the middle of December, Operation Mars had ended without being wholly successful. It had made partial gains.
36:04It had, for example, pointed out to the Germans that the salience of Joff and Demiansk were really virtually useless
36:11to them.
36:12And this is where the connection with Stalingrad comes in, because what the Soviet command claims is that, thanks to
36:18the pressure which was exerted by Operation Mars,
36:21it proved impossible for Army Group Centre to send relieving divisions in the direction of Stalingrad.
36:29Army Group Centre had managed to avoid a catastrophe at Velikai Luki, but in the sector of Army Group South,
36:35disaster could not be avoided at Stalingrad.
36:39The loss of the entire 6th Army sent ripples of dread throughout the German forces fighting in Russia.
36:50By a minor miracle, von Manstein was able to restore the situation in the south during the spring of 1943,
36:57to the extent that Hitler had the confidence to order a last supreme effort.
37:04This came in the form of the major summer offensive for 1943, Operation Citadel.
37:15In 1941, the bulk of the attacking forces had fallen to Army Group Centre.
37:21In 1942, the emphasis had been switched to Army Group South.
37:27For the summer campaign of 1943, offensive duties were to be split between them in a massive attack,
37:34designed to deliver a knockout blow to the Red Army.
37:40Despite the enormous forces gathered for the great assault, everyone was aware of the consequences of failure.
37:47The German army in Russia was at the limit of its endurance.
37:51Citadel was a gamble, an all or nothing throw of the dice, which risked everything on a single operation.
38:01Army Group Centre was to form the northern wing of the huge offensive,
38:05which was designed to pinch out the Russian salient, which bulged into the German lines,
38:11centered on the town of Kursk.
38:16From the Soviet side, the Russians took this equally seriously.
38:19They built up the largest defensive system they had ever, ever built, by the way.
38:23They took time over it.
38:24There were literally thousands of kilometres of trenches, minefields, separate positions.
38:30And for the first time in the history of the Soviet-German war,
38:35the Soviet command concentrated the largest single strategic reserve they had ever concentrated.
38:40They had decided to take on the German army toe-to-toe in a set-piece battle of annihilation.
38:49They had no reason to believe, given their experiences from June 1941 to November 1942,
38:55that the Red Army, the Red Army soldier, was capable of confronting his German counterpart on equal terms.
39:03They hoped he would be able to do so.
39:05Whether they were confident or whether they should have been confident of him achieving this,
39:10it remains open to doubt.
39:12Operation Citadel can justifiably be identified as a turning point of World War II.
39:17Had the German forces succeeded at Kursk, the entire course of the war would have been different.
39:48The Germans failed to break through to Kursk in the north, the Army Group Centre,
39:55under General Model, by the way, Hitler's so-called firemen.
39:58They didn't make much progress at all and were basically repulsed.
40:04In the south, where Army Group South was operating, they did make some progress, that is very true.
40:12But so strong were the Soviet defences, and indeed such punishment meted out to both sides in terms of their
40:20armoured forces,
40:21that ultimately Hitler was obliged to call off Operation Citadel.
40:27They didn't get to Kursk, they didn't break through,
40:29they didn't even, as Stalin feared then, get through to Moscow.
40:34After huge losses, Operation Citadel was abandoned in July 1943.
40:40With it, when Germany's last chance to win the war.
40:52There was a general recognition, after the Battle of Kursk in 1943,
40:58that this was the last offensive thrust of the German Army.
41:01It would never again undertake a major offensive operation in Russia.
41:06And after Kursk, after the end of 1943, on the autumn of 1943,
41:11the German Army was in fact compelled to conduct a permanent retreat.
41:17No sooner had Operation Citadel been called off,
41:20than Army Group Centre found itself under attack from a huge Russian offensive,
41:25aimed at the town of Oral, which was itself part of the German salient into the Russian lines.
41:31Where Citadel had failed, the Oral was a major success.
41:41From the scale of the assault, it was now obvious that Von Kluge and Army Group Centre would,
41:47from now on, be on the receiving end of the main efforts by the Red Army.
41:52Still weakened after their part in the fierce German summer offensive,
41:56Army Group Centre could not recover the offensive,
41:59and the strategic initiative had firmly passed to the Soviets.
42:10During the winter of 1943, Army Group Centre was repeatedly driven back from Oral to Bryansk,
42:16and back further to a defensive line which ran roughly from west of Smolensk to Gomel.
42:25Army Group Centre had had its chance to win the war.
42:29It now had to avoid losing it.
42:31But the task proved beyond the fast-dwindling strength of the Wehrmacht.
42:42On June the 22nd, 1944, the Red Army launched a massive, meticulously planned offensive,
42:48codenamed Operation Begration, which led to the virtual destruction of Army Group Centre in a period of just two weeks.
42:57Blind adherence to Hitler's order to stand firm contributed to the disastrous situation.
43:04The bulk of the forces of Army Group Centre were surrounded and completely destroyed in a lightning offensive which started
43:11on June the 23rd.
43:13By July the 3rd, Minsk had been captured, and 350,000 German prisoners were marched into captivity.
43:24A disaster of far greater magnitude than Stalingrad, the war in the East was all but lost by August the
43:3219th, 1944.
43:34The Russian forces had surged on to the borders of East Prussia.
43:40In simple terms, Operation Begration results in the destruction of Army Group Centre.
43:49Within four weeks, Army Group Centre suffers in the region of 450,000 military casualties and is effectively destroyed as
43:58a military force.
43:59It took three years, it took three long bloody years for the Russians to get their revenge.
44:08The German invasion of the Soviet Union opened in June 1941.
44:15In June 1944, the Soviet High Command and the Red Army opened the most enormous offensive against Army Group Centre.
44:24This time, they were aiming for the kill and they achieved it.
44:27This was by some distance the most complicated and sophisticated military operation the Red Army had launched to date.
44:35It involved four fronts, the 1st Belarusian, 2nd Belarusian, 3rd Belarusian and 1st Baltic Front.
44:42It represents further testimony to the increasing sophistication of Soviet manoeuvre warfare and the inability of German commanders to deal
44:53with the ever more powerful threat that the Red Army is presenting.
44:59And the most important thing was by pushing Army Group Centre apart and aside, they were able then to move
45:07along and onto the strategic access which they wanted to move onto, which was the shortest route to Berlin.
45:15The almost total destruction of Army Group Centre tore a huge gap in the German front line and left Army
45:22Group North vulnerable to encirclement.
45:25With the result, both the German forces in Russia were forced into a headlong retreat in order to avoid annihilation.
45:43As most of the seasoned veterans of the Eastern Front had been lost in the great encirclement battle of the
45:4819th of June, 1944,
45:50for the final defence of Germany in 1945, a new Army Group Centre was thrown together under the command of
45:58General Schorner.
46:02Although the men of the new Army Group Centre fought with great courage, there was little that they could do
46:07to prevent a second and final collapse.
46:15In January 1945, elements of Army Group Centre were again trapped and surrounded in East Prussia,
46:23with the pocket centred on the town of Kustvin, where they continued to offer resistance until April 1945.
46:31The End
46:33The End
46:34The End
46:47The End
46:48The End
47:01As the Reich disintegrated around them, and the overwhelming might of the Red Army began to grind Germany into submission,
47:09the last surviving elements of the Army were finally trapped by the Red Army in Königsberg,
47:15where they surrendered on May the 8th, 1945.
47:26Eventually, sanity prevailed, and in direct opposition to Hitler's orders, General Heinrich moved his men away from Berlin and certain
47:36destruction.
47:37It saved at least some lives.
47:41The name of Army Group Centre was associated with the very highest fighting spirit to the very last.
47:49Army Group Centre haunted the Red Army, and it took a long time to lay its ghost.
47:56The End
47:57The End
47:59The End
48:10The End
48:12The End
48:21The End
48:22The End
48:22The End
48:30The End
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