Soviet Western Front
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The Western Front was a Front (military subdivision) of the Soviet Army, one of the Soviet Army Fronts during the Second World War. This sense of the term is not identical with the more general usage of military front which indicates a geographic area in wartime, although a Soviet Front usually operates within designated boundaries.
The Western Front was created on June 22, 1941 from the Western Special Military District (which before July 1940 was known as Belorussian Special Military District). The first Front Commander was Dmitri Pavlov (continuing from his position as District Commander since June 1940).
The western boundary of the Front in June 1941 was 470 km long, from the southern border of Lithuania to the Pripyat River and the town of Vlodava. It connected with the adjacent Northern Front, which extended from the Lithuanian border to the Baltic Sea, and the Southwestern Front in the Ukraine.
Operational History
Defeat on the Frontiers
The Western Front was on the main axis of attack by the German Army Group Centre during Operation Barbarossa. At the outbreak of war with Germany, the front included the Soviet 3rd, 4th, and 10th Armies along the frontier. The 13th Army initially existed as a headquarters unit only, with no assigned forces. The Front's tanks and aviation at airfields were annihilated by German air strikes. The 1939 partition of Poland according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact established a new western border with no permanent defense installations, and the army deployment within the Front created weak flanks. The major forces of the Soviet Western Front were concentrated in the Bialystok salient. The German Ninth and Fourth Armies of Army Group Centre penetrated the border north and south of this salient. In the evening of 25 June, the German 47th Panzer Corps cut between Slonim and Volkovysk, forcing the attempted withdrawal of troops in the salient to avoid encirclement and opening the southern approaches to Minsk.On June 27 German Panzergruppe 2 and Panzergruppe 3 striking from south and north linked up near Minsk, surrounding and eventually destroying the Soviet Third and Tenth, Thirteenth and portions of the Fourth Soviet Armies, in total about 20 divisions, while the remainder of the Fourth Army fell back eastwards towards the Berezina River. On June 28 the Ninth and Fourth German Armies linked east of Bialystok splitting the encircled Soviet forces into two pockets: a larger Bialystok pocket containing the Soviet Tenth Army and a smaller Novogrudok pocket. Ultimately, in 17 days the Soviet Western Front lost 420,000 personnel from a total of 625,000.
The Front commander and Front Staff were recalled to Moscow, accused of intentional disorganization of defense and retreat without battle, and executed, with families repressed according to NKVD Order no. 00486 about families of traitors of Motherland. (They were rehabilitated in 1956.)
Assault on Moscow
The command was transferred to Acting Commander Andrei Yeremenko, and later to Semyon Timoshenko, and the Front took part in the fierce Battle of Smolensk (1941), which managed to disrupt the German blitzkrieg for two months.On 24 April, 1944, the Front was divided into the 2nd Belorussian Front and 3rd Belorussian Front.
Commanders
- General of the Army Dmitri G. Pavlov (June 1941: executed for treason)
- Marshal Semyon K. Timoshenko (July 1941-September 1941)
- Lt. General Ivan S. Konev [promoted to Colonel General in Sept. 1941] (September 1941-October 1941; August 1942-February 1943)
- General Georgy K. Zhukov (October 1941-August 1942)
- Colonel General V.D. Sokolovsky [promoted to full General in August 1943] (February 1943-April 1944: relieved for dereliction of duty)
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