Red Storm into Poland:

The Lviv-Sandomierz Summer Offensive

By Jon Cecil

By early June 1944, Army Group North Ukraine (AGNU) had been pushed west across the Dnieper River by the advancing Soviets. Those Germans then found themselves holding only the northwest corner of Ukraine in what was then southeast Poland.

The Soviet Supreme High Command (a.k.a. the Stavka, Stalin’s personal headquarters) drafted plans for a new offensive to be conducted by First Ukrainian Front (1UF, a western army group equivalent) commanded by Marshal Ivan Konev. Meanwhile, Hitler transferred Field Marshal Walther Model, the commander of AGNU, to Army Group Center and replaced him with Gen. Josef Harpe, another veteran commander.

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Narvik 1940

World at War, Issue #92 Magazine available!

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Articles:

• Narvik 1940 On 6 April 1940 the troops of the German 139th Mountain Infantry Regiment embarked on a destroyer squadron in Bremen. They were led by Lt. Gen. Eduard Dietl, commander of 3rd Mountain Infantry Division. Their target was Narvik, a port above the Arctic Circle. The fighting there would last for over two months. Here is our analysis.
• Red Storm Into Poland: The Lviv-Sandomierz Summer Offensive The Lviv-Sandomierz offensive secured bridgeheads for future offensive operations into southern Poland. In the process, they broke through along a front of 273 miles and penetrated 186 miles. They also mauled Army Group North Ukraine, causing total casualties of 137,000 compared with 224,000 of their own losses. Given the overall numerical imbalance in the east, any exchange rate less than 5:1 has to be seen as ultimately favoring the Soviets.
• SS Caucasus Cavalry Brigade The origins of the Caucasus units of the Waffen SS date to the formation of the “Volunteer Cadre Division,” made up of defectors from various ethnic groups of the USSR, initially set up in France early on 1 February 1944. The division was a conglomeration of five training regiments, each with personnel from different ethnicities (“tribes” to the Germans).
• Romania at War When Romania entered the war the country’s armored corps, while equipped with a relatively large number of tanks, had a decidedly outdated inventory. The tanks, aircraft and ships available were light pre-war designs, many produced abroad.. With that obsolete equipment they still conducted relatively effective defensive operations prior to the Soviets’ Stalingrad counteroffensive.

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