When reports of Soviet attacks northwest and southeast of Vitebsk arrived in the morning hours of 22 June, the timing of the Soviet action, at least, came as no surprise to the Germans. It was, after all, the third anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, although, ironically, the one thing the Germans got right was purely by chance. The attack had originally been scheduled for the nineteenth but was postponed for three days by transportation problems. Even then, the staggered nature of the Soviet offensives meant that it took some time for the OKH to realize the enormity of what was transpiring. A diversionary offensive in the north in Karelia had begun on the tenth, while on the night of 19–20 June partisans had launched a coordinated attack against railroad bridges and transportation junctions in the rear of Army Group Center in an effort to paralyze German supply and troop movements. Even the assault at Vitebsk on the twenty-second, although accompanied by heavy air and artillery bombardments, initially seemed more of a probing attack than a full-fledged offensive. Even so, from the outset, the defenders at Vitebsk faced an untenable situation: they were already surrounded on three sides, so the Soviets merely had to pull the noose shut. Despite the Germans having exacted a stiff price from the attackers, by the twenty-fourth the Soviets had torn through the Third Panzer Army defenses and threatened to encircle German units in Vitebsk. Little could be done to help them, however, since on the twenty-third the enemy had extended the offensive to the Fourth Army in the middle at Orsha and Mogilev, while the next day Rokossovsky’s forces in the south, having painstakingly constructed wooden causeways through the swamps, burst out to take units of the Ninth Army completely by surprise. Still expecting the Soviet Schwerpunkt to fall against Kovel, however, both the OKH and Busch were reluctant to transfer units from Army Group North Ukraine or the Second Army to blunt enemy momentum.11
Just as worrisome, whatever slim chance a static defense had at repulsing the Soviets had been shattered since, in contrast to their usual bludgeoning frontal assaults, the Russians had, instead, followed German principles in their attack. Using tightly concentrated infantry, artillery, and air attacks, they had focused on punching holes in a few key sectors, through which tank units burst and, without worrying about their flank, drove deep to the west in large encirclement movements. Since the Red Air Force had absolute air superiority—on 22 June, Army Group Center could muster only sixty-one operational fighters, the rest having been transferred to Normandy or to protect German industrial areas—and because Hitler had forbidden any flexible defense, German artillery had been stationed directly on the front, an easy target for destruction. The crisis point had, in fact, already been reached on the twenty-fourth as events spun out of control and the German command floundered about. Even though the Soviets had torn a twenty-five-mile-wide hole in the Third Panzer Army’s front and threatened to trap the five divisions of the Fifty-third Army Corps in Vitebsk, Hitler, having declared the city a fortified place, initially refused to authorize a withdrawal but then, following appeals by Reinhardt, Zeitzler, and even Busch, in a strange compromise designed clearly to spare himself the embarrassment of admitting an error, directed that the city be held, but with only one of the five divisions. Even this nonsensical concession came too late, for, as the German leaders bickered, the Soviets snapped the trap shut at Vitebsk, dooming some thirty thousand troops. By the twenty-eighth, with the hole in his front grown to sixty miles and the retreat of his units having degenerated into a wild flight for safety, Reinhardt effectively gave up any effort at overall control, instead ordering the remnants of his shattered army merely to fight a delaying action westward, thus hindering as much as possible enemy breakthroughs.12
On the army group’s right flank, the Ninth Army was the last to be attacked, on 24 June, but its situation descended into catastrophe almost immediately, partly because of the overwhelming Soviet superiority, and partly because of Rokossovsky’s brilliant direction of the battle, especially the surprise effect of tank forces bursting out of the swamps. Already on the first day the Soviets blasted a twenty-mile-wide hole in the front, while, as to the north, German commanders faced the realization that they had no operational reserve to plug the gap. As on the left flank, here, too, the top German leadership worked at cross-purposes, leading to enormous confusion and dissipation of effort. On the twenty-fourth, for example, the Twentieth Panzer Division, which had been dispatched from Army Group North Ukraine just before the attack, was sent to seal off enemy penetrations on the Ninth Army’s northern wing. With alarming reports of Soviet breakthroughs on the southern flank flooding in, however, Busch ordered it to break off its attack and move sixty miles south to counter the Soviet threat there. By the time it attacked at noon on the twenty-fifth, however, it was too late; its forty tanks could hardly slow, let alone stop, the enemy breakthrough. Despite the fact that, over the next few days, it destroyed some 213 enemy tanks near Bobruisk, this was a meaningless tactical success in view of the overwhelming Soviet superiority. Even in the best of circumstances, the Twentieth Panzer’s forty panzers could hardly be expected to halt Rokossovsky’s nine hundred tanks, let alone when it was forced to move hither and yon.13
If Busch’s misdirection of the Twentieth Panzer was not bad enough, Hitler’s intervention on the twenty-seventh produced total chaos. Although Bobruisk had also been proclaimed a fortified place, at 9:00 A.M. on the twenty-seventh the Ninth Army received permission to allow the Thirty-fifth Army Corps and the Forty-first Panzer Corps to break out from the threatening encirclement. Fifteen minutes later, however, at Hitler’s behest, a counterorder followed from army group headquarters withdrawing permission to retreat. Chaos and tumult ensued, with some units choosing to defend the city, some fleeing, and some that had begun a withdrawal attempting to return to the city. Not until 4:00 P.M. did the Ninth Army receive a new order, but it hardly clarified the situation. As at Vitebsk, all but one of the surrounded units received permission to break out, but, as in the north, by then it was too late: some seventy thousand German troops, leaderless, confused, and panicky, milled about in the pocket awaiting orders. Having declared Bobruisk a fortified place, Hitler was too proud to admit his mistake. Officers at Ninth Army headquarters condemned this sequence of events as “operational nonsense” and “madness,” but perhaps the most poignant statement was made by the commander of the 134th Infantry Division, who in his despair committed suicide.14