Summer 1944. One year on from
their great defeat at Kursk, the German armed forces are suffering
shortages in men, tanks and aircraft. Now Hitler faces war on two fronts. As troops move west
to face the D-Day landings, the Red Army prepares
a mighty offensive in the East. In the middle of the night,
and under close guard, a new tank regiment arrived at a train
station near the border with Byelorussia. Alongside the T-34s, some very heavy, bulky objects covered in tarpaulin were
unloaded from the flat-bed wagons. The Red Army’s plans
in Byelorussia were top secret. These objects would remain
a mystery for several days... until they unveiled on the training ground. They were heavy metal rollers, which were
to be attached to the front of a T-34. They transformed the tank
into a minesweeper. The rollers would detonate
any mine in the tank’s path, clearing a safe lane for infantry
and other vehicles to follow. Two regiments of these engineer tanks had been secretly deployed
to the 1st Byelorussian Front. Clearly the Front Commander,
General Rokossovsky, was planning some sort of offensive. But to any onlooker,
Soviet forces in Byelorussia seemed only to be making
defensive preparations. From the air, only movement away
from the frontlines could be detected. Everything was being done
to give the impression that this sector was being weakened, and that a Soviet offensive
was being prepared somewhere else. On 6th June 1944, the day
of the Allied landings in Normandy, Stalin wrote to Churchill:
“The summer offensive of the Soviet Forces, as was agreed at the Tehran Conference,
will begin in mid-June, at one of the vital sectors of the front.” Which "vital sector" was not even to be
shared with Allied heads of government. In the east, the Germans were firmly
on the defensive in June 1944, as they struggled to fend off
the D-Day landings in France. Army Group North
was retreating from Leningrad. Army Group South had given up
the Crimea and much of Ukraine. Only Army Group Centre
seemed to be hanging on. German positions on this front formed
the so-called “Byelorussian balcony”. Here Army Group Centre stood firm.
Over the winter it had successfully repulsed two Soviet
offensives around Vitebsk and Orsha. Hitler and the German Army
High Command had much to consider as summer approached.
They had no firm intelligence on when or where the main Soviet offensive
would be launched. The Germans decided that Stalin would seek to capitalise on his recent
gains in Ukraine. They had brought the Red Army
to withing striking distance of Romania and its oil fields. So in the summer of 1944, precious German reserves of tanks
and aircraft were sent south. When the Soviet Stavka High command saw
German reinforcements moving to Ukraine, it confirmed their decision to launch
a surprise attack in Byelorussia. Here, the Red Army would be given
the chance to avenge its worst defeat, suffered at German hands
in the first months of the war. The operation was codenamed Bagration. The Stavka planned a series of assaults
against the flanks of Army Group Centre, which would be encircled and destroyed
near the cities of Vitebsk and Bobruisk. Then the Red Army would advance on Minsk,
cutting off German retreat. The Soviet planned nothing less
than the total destruction of German Army Group Centre. The Red Army had never set itself such
a massive and ambitious goal. General Rokossovsky proposed
that his 1st Byelorussian Front deliver two simultaneous thrusts
against the German right flank, at Bobruisk and Slutsk.
Each thrust would be given equal priority. This contradicted standard
Soviet military doctrine, which dictated that there be
a single main axis of advance, with all other attacks acting in
a supporting role. Konstantin Konstantinovich
Rokossovsky was a decorated hero of the First World War
and the Russian Civil War. But probably because of his Polish origin, he found himself under arrest
in Stalin’s Great Purge of 1937. Despite being tortured
by the NKVD secret police, he refused to sign a confession
or inform on his colleagues. He was released in 1940
and restored to his rank. At the beginning of the war
he commanded a mechanised corps, but rose rapidly to senior command. In May 1944, Rokossovsky
was summoned to a meeting of the Stavka to defend his proposal.
It was a dramatic scene, in which his plan to deliver two simultaneous
thrusts came in for much criticism. In his memoirs Rokossovsky wrote:
“I was twice sent into the next room to think over the Supreme
Command’s comments. And each time I came back, I was yet
more insistent that I was correct. At last Stalin said:
"The Front Commander’s persistence proves that the planning of the offensive
has been thoroughly considered. It is a firm guarantee of success.” Rokossovsky’s proposal had the green light. Vitebsk was held by General
Reinhardt’s Third Panzer Army. But depsite its impressive name, by 1944, Third Panzer Army
had hardly any tanks left. General Reinhardt began the war
in command of the 4th Panzer Division, but replaced Hoth
as commander of Third Panzer Group during the Battle of Moscow in 1941. That year his tanks had got to within
15 kilometres of the Russian capital. Army Group Centre
was made up of four armies, with a total strength of about
1 million men. Operation Bagration was to be the largest and most thoroughly prepared
Soviet operation of the war so far. If the Germans
had discovered the preparations, they would immediately
have reinforced the Byelorussian front. The forests and swamps
presented enough difficulties. German reinforcements
would have been disastrous. Therefore, secrecy was
of the utmost importance. All troop movements took place only
at night, under camouflage, with no lights. White posts were placed at the roadside
to keep drivers on the road. Tailgates and bonnets were painted white
so they could be seen by other vehicles. Units that hadn’t reached
their destination by dawn would immediately pull over
and begin to camouflage their vehicles. A special pass was needed
to drive a vehicle in daytime, and less than a hundred passes
had been allocated to each army. Soviet aircraft flew overhead
to inspect the troops’ camouflage. If a pilot spotted a Red Army unit,
he dropped a pennant. This told the unit commander
that his men could be seen from the air, and that he had to improve his camouflage. Security measures were in place
from top to bottom. Plans were drawn up by hand
by just two or three officers, and taken to the Stavka
by the Front Commander in person. Around Vitebsk,
the decision was made not to bring up any tanks for the
first phase of the attack. There was too much risk
that they would be detected. Red Army radio traffic vanished. Russian units were notorious
for bad radio discipline. But as one German noted,
“The Russians broke with tradition, and observed complete radio silence.” Meanwhile, Soviet soldiers
practiced crossing the swamps and forests of Byelorussia. Infantrymen learnt how
to cross marshes, how to swim, and how to find
their bearings in the woods. Many made marsh-shoes so they could walk
without sinking into the swamps. They built rafts to transport machineguns,
mortars and light guns through the marsh. Logs and fascines —
bundles of sticks tied together — were laid to create roads for vehicles. Meanwhile, supplies flooded in by rail. The Stavka had ordered that the troops
were to be issued with five times their normal ammunition load
for the offensive. This amount of shells,
bullets and grenades would require 6,500 railway
carriages to transport. In total 400,000 tones of ammunition,
300,000 tones of fuel, and more than 500,000 tones
of food and forage were delivered
to the troops in Byelorussia. It meant that every day,
100 supply trains arrived at the front. It was impossible to completely
conceal preparations of such magnitude. But the German High Command still thought that the Soviet attack
would come in Ukraine. Field Marshal Busch,
Commander of Army Group Centre went on leave three days
before the Soviet offensive. His million-strong army group
was about to be attacked by the combined
strength of four Soviet fronts. 2.4 million soldiers,
5,200 tanks and self-propelled guns, and 5,300 aircraft. The final preparations for the offensive
fell to Red Army engineers. Both sides had laid massive
minefields in front of their lines. Now the engineers would have to crawl
into these minefields and begin to clear safe lanes
for the attack. They would have to work
in the dark and in silence. And they had just two nights
to complete the job. The key element of any mine
is the firing mechanism. Pressure on it causes the mine to explode. Demining involves
first of all locating the mine, then removing or disabling
the firing mechanism, and then removing
the disarmed mine to a safe place. The mine clearance teams
had to work quickly and quietly. They knew that a single mistake
could cost them their life. To save time, the engineers
only removed detonators, leaving the actual mine in place. They also had to worry
about German booby traps, including trip wires hidden
amongst the long summer grass. Both sides were forced to constantly
refine and update their methods, to counter new threats
or tricks devised by the enemy. Step by step, the engineers picked
a path through this lethal landscape. In just two nights,
they’d defused 34,000 mines. It was the final stage of preparation. Through these cleared lanes,
the Red Army was now poised to launch one of the largest
and most decisive operations in history. The final preparations had been made for
the great Soviet summer offensive of 1944. A last minute change to its timing
only added to the weight of expectation. Operation Bagration
would begin on 22nd June — the third anniversary
of Germany’s invasion. The offensive began on the northern flank, with probing attacks
in the vicinity of Vitebsk. Here, infantry of the 1st Baltic
and 3rd Byelorussian Fronts successfully stormed
the German front line trenches. By nightfall, Soviet units
were engaged along the entire front, as probing attacks gave way
to full-blooded assault. Hundreds of aircraft arrived overhead
to pour bombs onto the German front line. At dawn the T-34s joined the assault. Swarms of Ilyushin ground-attack
aircraft crossed the front line, with orders to hunt and destroy German
artillery batteries in the enemy rear. German heavy artillery
was a feared opponent, capable of stalling the whole offensive. But it was also extremely
vulnerable to air attack. In low level strafing attacks,
The IL-2s used machine guns, canons and rockets to mow down gun crews
and destroy ammunition stockpiles. The Ilyushin IL-2 was designed by Sergey Ilyushin
of the Soviet Central Design Bureau. It became the most heavily produced
military aircraft of all time. The crew and engine
were protected by armour. This was essential to protect them
from small arms fire, when making low level attacks
at an altitude of just 25 - 50 metres. The Il-2 was slow and therefore extremely
vulnerable to German fighter attack. So by the second half of the war, they always flew their missions
with a fighter escort. But by June 1944, the Luftwaffe
was a shadow of its former self. German Army Group Centre had
just 40 fighters available for air defence. Its troops had been left wide open
to Soviet air attack. Soviet Shturmovik ground attack aircraft
roamed freely over the battlefield, often dispensing
with their fighter escorts. Meanhwile, Hitler had come up
with the idea of the “fortress town”. Troops defending locations
with this special status were expected to fight to the last man, even when completely surrounded.
One such "fortress town" was Vitebsk. The city was held by the 53rd Corps, part of General Reinhardt’s
Third Panzer Army. After the first day’s fighting,
Reinhardt proposed to withdraw his forces from Vitebsk
before they became cut off. But Field Marshal Bush passed on
the Fuehrer’s order — the city was to be held at all costs. On the third day of the battle, the Red Army
duly encircled the 53rd Corps at Vitebsk. Only now, when it was too late,
did Hitler authorise a retreat. But he still insisted that one
division be left behind in Vitebsk with orders to fight to the end. The Germans’ desperate attempt to escape
the trap was doomed from the start. The breakout was led
by the 4th Luftwaffe Field Division, which got as far as the forests
to the southwest of the city. There, it came under overwhelming artillery
and air attack, and was annihilated. After five days of fighting,
the German 53rd Corps capitulated. 17,000 survivors entered captivity, amongst them the corps commander,
General Gollwitzer. The single German infantry division left
in Vitebsk met a similar fate. The Red Army burst into the city, capturing
the bridge over the Western Dvina. The Germans tried to escape
at the last minute, but all were either killed or captured. Meanwhile to the south,
Rokossovsky’s 1st Byelorussian Front began their attack towards
the city of Bobruysk. This was where Rokossovsky was attempting
his controversial two-pronged assault, from the direction of Rogachov,
and from the village of Parichi. Zhukov arrived to observe the assault
of General Gorbatov’s Third Army. With Rokossovsky directing
the southern attack across the marshes, and Zhukov co-ordinating
the northern assault, a clear rivalry had developed as to who
would be first to crack the German lines. Near Rogachov, Soviet heavy bombers
attacked under cover of darkness. They were helped to their target
by Red Army trucks, drawn up in long lines, facing eastwards
with their headlights turned on. These lights, hidden from the Germans, pointed the Soviet pilots
towards their target. In his memoirs, General Gorbatov wrote: “First we heard the buzz of light aircraft
flying over to attack the enemy positions. Then this noise was joined by the rumble
of heavy aircraft, wave after wave of them. Soon the enemy lines erupted
in explosions and flame.” At dawn, Soviet ground attack aircraft
continued the bombardment. They strafed German trenches, and pummeled
strongpoints with rockets and bombs. Soviet air attacks could be
wild and inaccurate, but now they also began to take a fearsome
psychological toll on the German soldiers. With no protection from the Luftwaffe, they lived in almost constant fear
of a sudden, deadly attack from above. Before the smoke had cleared, shells and
Katyusha rockets screamed through the air. As the bombardment raged, minesweeping
tanks began their advance. Their heavy rollers detonated the mines
in their path, clearing wide lanes for the tanks and self-propelled
guns that followed in their wake. Despite this massive assault
by land and air, the Red Army continued to encounter fierce
German resistance around Rogachov. But further to the south
around the village of Parichi, General Rokossovsky was making steady
progress through the swamps and forests. Now he ordered forward General
Pliyev’s mechanized cavalry corps to exploit the breach. Rokossovsky’s gamble on
a two-pronged assault had paid off. He had made a breakthrough.
And he had done it before Zhukov. Army Group Centre’s only
panzer division was ordered to make a counterattack near Rogachov. But at the last moment it
received urgent new orders — to move south
to block Rokossovsky’s advance. Many of its vehicles broke down
in the difficult, marshy terrain. But Rokossovsky had widened the breach
and was already pouring in fresh troops. One panzer division
was not going to stop him now. German defences around Rogachov,
robbed of their tank reinforcement and under Zhukov’s incessant
hammer blows, now collapsed. The German Ninth Army was encircled.
Two days later, it surrendered. 20,000 Germans were taken prisoner. The Red Army’s next objective was Minsk,
the capital of Byelorussia. Its liberation was to be led by General
Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank Army. The plan was for Rotmistrov’s tanks to dash
straight down the Smolensk-Minsk highway. But attempts to capture Orsha, along
the route, had been bloodily repulsed. So the decision was taken to launch
the attack from the vicinity of Vitebsk, where the Red Army had already blown
a hole through the German defences. The 5,000 vehicles of the 5th Guards Tank
Army began their attack towards Borisov, deep in the rear of Army Group Centre. For two days,
their advance met virtually no resistance. Meanwhile, Hitler had relieved
Field Marshal Busch of command. His successor was Field Marshal Model, the so-called "Fuehrer’s fireman"
and master of defence. But he inherited a desperate situation. Three Soviet Fronts
were advancing on Minsk. The Germans were in full retreat,
hoping to reach the Berezina River. But the Red Army already
held most of the crossing points. The Germans held just one bridge
on the Mogilev — Minsk highway. Thousands of German vehicles, carts and
soldiers were now converging on the bridge. One German witness described the scene. “The scramble was wildest on
the approaches to the bridge. Carts and cars were trying
to push each other off the road. Each wanted to be first onto the bridge.
There were fights and swearing. The military police were powerless”. And always, there was
the constant fear of air attack. "Shturmovik" ground attack aircraft
mauled retreating columns of German troops. Increasingly, the situation began
to resemble the summer of 1941. But now the roles were reversed. It was the Germans’ turn to flee
in terror and confusion, under incessant attack from above. And now they could
expect neither respite, nor mercy. As German Army Group Centre
threatened to disintegrate, the Wehrmacht threw its medium
bombers into the battle. It was hoped they could halt
the Soviet tank columns, and earn their own troops some
desperately-needed breathing space. But in the face of Soviet air superiority, daylight raids led
to heavy losses for little gain. One week into the offensive, German panzer
divisions began to arrive from Ukraine. The German 5th Panzer Division,
reinforced with a battalion of Tiger tanks, prepared to meet the advance
of Rotmistrov’s army. The Tigers and Panthers slowed
the Soviet advance to a bloody crawl. In July 1944, the 5th Guards Tank army
had yet to receive the new Т-34-85 tanks. This updated version had a much
more powerful 85mm gun. Although it didn’t make them the equal
of a German Tiger or Panther tank, it did make their encounters
less one-sided. The tank battles raged for two days. The Red Army suffered enormous losses. But German tank strength was also
reduced, from 159 to just 18 tanks. The fate of Minsk was sealed. Tigers and Panthers had bought
Army Group Centre some time, but they couldn’t prop up the entire front. At dawn on 3rd July, tanks of the 1st
and 3rd Byelorussian Fronts rolled into Minsk
from the north and southeast, encircling the remnants
of two German Armies. Meanwhile the 2nd Byelorussian Front
harried the German retreat from the east. It took a week to eradicate German
resistance within Minsk. The encirclement at Minsk led
to the capture of another 35,000 prisoners, including 12 generals. By now German Army Group Centre
had suffered catastrophic losses. 17 of its divisions had been wiped out
in just two weeks of fighting. The Germans had suffered
total casualties estimated at 409,000. 150,00 of these were prisoners. The German panzer divisions
remained a potent weapon. But Army Group Centre no longer
had the manpower to form a defensive line. Operation Bagration did not end
until 19th August, by which time the Red Army
had reached central Poland, the border of East Prussia,
and the Baltic Sea. Five Soviet Fronts, on a front of more than 1,000 kilometres,
had advance between 550 and 600 kilometres. The success of the operation surpassed
the wildest expectations of the Stavka High Command. After Operation Bagration,
Stalin began to address Rokossovsky using both his name and patronymic —
Konstantin Konstantinovich. The only person he’d honoured in this way
before was Marshal Shaposhnikov, his most trusted general. The Soviet victory was so overwhelming that some foreign press agencies doubted
whether the reports were accurate. So, Stalin decided to prove it. He gave the order to begin
Operation The Great Waltz, named after a popular
American film of 1938. Trains from Byelorussia secretly
began to arrive in Moscow. The Central Moscow Hippodrome
and the Dynamo Stadium were cordoned off. On 17 July it was announced to the public
that German prisoners-of-war captured in Operation Bagration would be
paraded through the streets of Moscow. Muscovites poured onto the streets
to witness this strange spectacle. The procession was led
by 19 German generals in full uniform. They were followed
by more than 1,000 officers. After them shuffled columns of weary,
unshaven soldiers. This was what Stalin
wanted the world to see — the fate of Adolf Hitler’s
once proud conquering army. The people of Moscow watched
for the most part in silence. In many of their minds, the German soldier
had become almost totally dehumanised. The Soviet people had been
subjected to endless propaganda. But they had also suffered terrible
and brutal losses. To many, the German soldier
was a fascist beast, responsible for murders and rapes,
and the burning of villages and towns. 57,000 German prisoners
were paraded through the city, on route to labour camps in the east. The procession was followed up
by street cleaners, washing away all trace
of the hated fascists. This startling display made
a huge impression on Muscovites and foreign observers alike,
as was its intention. Now none had any doubt in the war’s
ultimate victorious conclusion. The collapse of German Army Group Centre
allowed the Red Army to continue its advance towards Poland
and East Prussia. In the Baltic region, the advance was led
by General Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front and General Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd
Byelorussian Front. On 8th July Chernyakhovsky’s troops
reached the outskirts of Vilnius. The city was soon surrounded, and after five
days of vicious house-to-house fighting, the garrison laid down its arms. The 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps
made a bold and rapid advance, covering 70 kilometres to reach
the Lithuanian city of Šiauliai. On 31st July, the commander
of its 8th Mechanized Brigade radioed corps headquarters to tell them,
“We’re on the beach of the Gulf of Riga”. This short radio message
meant something incredible — all German forces in the Baltic
were now cut off. The commander’s report was so unexpected that his corps commander
asked him to repeat it. Then he have him the following unusual
order: “Fill three bottles with sea water. Then seal the bottles, and have
the commander sign them personally to confirm that the water was taken
from the Baltic Sea. Then send the bottles
to corps headquarters.” The bottles of sea water were delivered
to Front headquarters by aircraft, and from there sent to Moscow…
they were on their way to Stalin. Soon, the bottles stood on a Kremlin table, as proof that Soviet tanks
had reached the sea. Operation Bagration
had smashed open the Eastern Front. Now the Red Army was on the move
in the Baltic. Next stop was Tallinn. The Estonian capital
was the objective of Red Army units of the 8th Estonian Rifle Corps,
under Lieutenant General Pärn. He organised a motorised column which
covered a hundred kilometres in one day. His men stormed into Tallinn
and took the city on 22nd September, 1944. Now there just remained German Army Group
North, trapped in the Courland Peninsula. Despite repeated requests from General
Guderian, now Chief of the General Staff, Hitler refused to allow the troops
to be evacuated from Courland. The German pocket in Courland was described
as "an armed prisoner of war camp". The troops trapped there ceased to have
any influence on the course of the war. Army Group Courland finally laid down
its arms on 11th May, 1945, two days after Germany’s surrender. The Red Army had reached the border of
East Prussia. It was here, at Königsberg, that remnants of Army Group Centre
had withdrawn after defeat in Byelorussia. The shattered German formations
had received new recruits and new weaponry. The Red Army couldn’t safely
bypass such a potential hornet’s nest. Nor did the prospect of a long siege
appeal to the Stavka. The decision was taken
to isolate East Prussia with a thrust north into East Pomerania,
towards Danzig on the Baltic coast. Then resistance in East Prussia would be
methodically broken down. It would be hard. Many German units now fought
fanatically to defend Germany from the wrath of the Red Army. The job of breaking through
to the Baltic was entrusted to Rokossovsky’s 2nd Byelorussian Front.
He attacked on 14th January 1945. But just one day into the offensive,
the weather took a turn for the worse. Rokossovsky recalled: “It was already
daylight but nothing could be seen: everything was hidden by a veil
of mist and falling snow. The weather was abominable, and the
meteorologists predicted no improvement. So I cancelled all air operations.” The artillery fired blindly
into the snowstorm. The infantry advance was slow,
just 3 or 4 kilometres on the first day. The Germans stiffened their defence with
Tiger tanks and Sturmgeschütz assault guns. General Reinhardt,
now in command of Army Group Centre, still hoped to launch an armoured
counterattack to stem the Soviet advance. But his tanks were sent south to face
more Soviet offensives on the Vistula. Reinhardt could only call on the elite
Panzergrenadier division, Grossdeutschland. As it began its advance, it ran into
500 Soviet tanks of the Front reserve. By 1945, the Т-34/85 was
the main tank of the Red Army. It retained many of the characteristics
of the earlier T-34/76, such as excellent mobility and reliability. The main improvement
was a powerful 85 mm gun, housed in a larger three-man turret.
The size of the crew was increased to 5. About 80,000 of these tanks
were produced by the USSR before production finally
came to an end in 1950. They remained in service with many armies
around the world until the 1990s. After having defeated
the enemy’s tank reserve, Rokossovsky ordered forward
the 5th Guards Tank Army. Reinhardt appealed to Hitler: “My Fuhrer! A captured enemy map
shows that the Russian tank army is moving towards Danzig.
If it gets through, we’ll be attacked from the rear
and unable to defend ourselves.” Reinhardt requested permission to retreat. Nine days passed before Hitler agreed.
By then it was too late. The Soviet tanks
had reached the Vistula Lagoon. East Prussia had been cut off
from the Reich. Chernyakhovsky 3rd Byelorussian Front
had arrived at Königsberg from the east. German Army Group Centre
had been chopped into three parts. Bad weather prevented the Soviet air force attacking the retreating
columns of men and vehicles. This allowed the Germans
to assemble improvised fighting groups around Konigsberg. They were still able
to offer fierce resistance. On 18th February 1945,
General Chernyakhovsky, commander of the 3rd Byelorussian Front, was badly wounded
by shell fragments at Mehlsack. He died the same day.
He was just 39 years old. Marshal Vasilevsky arrived to take command
of Soviet troops in East Prussia. Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky
was the Chief of the Soviet General Staff for most of the war.
This meant he was responsible for planning most of the major
Soviet operations on the Eastern Front. He was described by colleagues
as polite and diplomatic, and he was trusted by Stalin. However some said Vasilevsky
lacked the courage to stand up to him. Vasilevsky was twice decorated
as "Hero of the Soviet Union". Gradually German resistance
in East Prussia was overcome. The pocket south of Konigsberg
was first to fall. Königsberg itself did not surrender
until April 1945. In East Prussia the Red Army
faced fanatical German resistance. But Soviet firepower was overwhelming. In his memoirs, Vasilevsky described
the East Prussian Offensive as the most expensive in history
in terms of the consumption of ammunition. He estimated that in this campaign, the Red Army used over 15,000
railway carriages of ammunition. The fortified city of Konigsberg was finally pummelled into submission
by the Soviet artillery. Its surrender netted the Red Army
another 92,000 prisoners. By this point, Marshal Zhukov
was putting the final touches on his plan for the assault on Berlin. To the south, fighting continued to rage
in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. The 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts
battled elite SS divisions as they advanced on Austria. All had been made possible
by the success of Operation Bagration. In the south, too, the Red Army had
travelled a long and bitter road to victory. It had begun many miles
to the east in 1943, as Soviet troops prepared
to cross the Dnieper River. Before them, lay the Battle of Ukraine…
