Orsha offensives (1943)

Orsha offensives Part of The Eastern Front of World War II Date October 12, 1943 – November 19, 1943 Location Orsha region, Belarus, Soviet Union Belligerents Nazi Germany  Soviet Union Commanders and leaders Gotthard Heinrici Vasily Sokolovsky Strength 4th Army 193,510 men Heavy fortifications Western Front 310,900 men steady reinforcements

Eastern Front Naval warfare Baltic Sea Black Sea Arctic Ocean 1941 Barbarossa Brest Białystok and Minsk Raseiniai Brody Bessarabia Smolensk Uman Odessa 1st Kiev Tallinn disaster Leningrad Sevastopol Rostov Moscow Finland Chechnya 1942 Lyuban Rzhev Toropets and Kholm Demyansk Kholm Velikiye Luki Rzhev, Summer 1942 2nd Kharkov Case Blue Caucasus Stalingrad Uranus Mars Winter Storm Little Saturn 1943 Tidal Wave 3rd Kharkov Kursk 2nd Smolensk Lower Dnieper 2nd Kiev 1944 Dnieper and Carpathian Leningrad and Novgorod Narva Hube's Pocket Crimea Jassy-Kishinev Karelia Bagration Lvov and Sandomierz Doppelkopf 2nd Jassy-Kishinev Baltics Riga Tallinn Moonsund Memel Debrecen Dukla Pass Belgrade Petsamo and Kirkenes Courland Hungary Budapest 1945 Vistula and Oder Poznań East Prussia Königsberg Heiligenbeil Samland East Pomerania Kolberg Solstice Silesia Breslau Lake Balaton Vienna Berlin Czechoslovakia German capitulation

The Orsha offensives were a series of battles, fought between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht during the winter of 1943. Orsha was a main traffic junction with the north-south road from Leningrad to Kiev and the east-west road from Minsk to Moscow. After the failure of Operation Typhoon in the winter of 1941, Army Group Centre had spent the most part on the defensive in the central sector of the front. The time afforded to them in 1942, a distinct period of inactivity, allowed the Wehrmacht to build formidable defensive positions.

Prelude

Panther-Wotan Line

After their defeat in the Battle of Smolensk, the Wehrmacht retreated on a broad front to the Panther-Stellung line. The German 4th Army (Heinrici)—part of Army Group Centre—took defensive positions near Orsha. To the north. the 3rd Panzer Army (Reinhardt) took up defensive lines around Vitebsk, and to the south the 9th Army (Model) held the area east of Bobrujsk. The Soviet Stavka saw the liberation of Ukraine as their primary goal, so the Lower Dnieper Offensive had priority in equipment and reinforcements.

The battles

The 4th Army was in retreat to the Panther-Wotan line, pursued by the Soviets. Soviet troops then launched a heavy attack on both sides of the Minsk-Moscow highway. The thrust was directed at Orsha, a main traffic junction.

Notes

References

Literature

Frieser, "Das deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg" Vol. 8