Eastern Front · Soviet Union and Poland vs Germany
Vistula-Oder Offensive
12 January 1945 – 2 February 1945
Zhukov and Konev's fronts broke out of the Vistula bridgeheads and advanced 500 km in three weeks, liberating Warsaw and Krakow, overrunning Silesia and reaching the Oder 70 km from Berlin. Army Group A was shattered and the Auschwitz camp was liberated on the way.
Explore Vistula-Oder Offensive on the interactive map · Wikipedia
Day by day
— Out of the bridgeheads
Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front opens the offensive from the Sandomierz bridgehead at 05:00 with a two-hour bombardment on a narrow front. Behind the Vistula stands Army Group A with fourteen divisions in the line and its reserves held too far forward, on Hitler's order, to escape the shelling.
— Warsaw
Zhukov attacked on the 14th from Magnuszew and Pulawy and pinched out the Vistula line either side of the capital. The Polish 1st Army enters Warsaw on the 17th and finds a city the Germans have systematically demolished. The same day Konev takes Czestochowa, 200 kilometres from his start line.
— Silesia
Konev swings his tank armies north of the Upper Silesian industrial basin and the Germans abandon it almost intact rather than be cut off. Men of the 60th Army reach the wire at Auschwitz on the 27th and find about 7,000 prisoners left behind. Poznan has been surrounded since the 25th and holds out in its Prussian forts.
— The Oder
A reconnaissance battalion of the 5th Shock Army crosses the frozen Oder at Kienitz before dawn on the 31st and takes the little town at breakfast time. Berlin is seventy kilometres away. Konev is over the river either side of Steinau and Breslau is nearly surrounded.
— Halt on the river
The offensive stops on the Oder to bring the supply columns forward and deal with a long open flank in Pomerania. In three weeks the two fronts have gone 500 kilometres and destroyed Army Group A as a fighting formation. Poznan holds until 23 February and Breslau until the last week of the war.
