Synopsis
An enduring study of the partisan war behind German lines highlights how widespread guerrilla activity and fierce rear-area fighting shaped strategic outcomes in 1944.
After the disastrous Battle of Kursk in July 1943, the Soviets went on the offensive. A series of counterattacks began all along the Eastern Front that would eventually lead the Red Army to the Nazi capital in less than two years. One of these, Operation Bagration, fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944, resulted in the largest defeat in German military history.
Coordinating with these huge Soviet forces were the partisans, who would be instrumental in destroying rail lines, lines of communication, German munitions and supply depots behind the German lines before the Red Army would make its attack. Quite often increased partisan activity behind the lines indicated to the Germans exactly where the next Red Army offensive would be launched.
By the beginning of 1944 it was clear to all but the most naīve or the most fanatical that Germany’s back was against the wall; for the Wehrmacht, the war in the East was not going well. One did not need to see the calamites happening to the Ostheer (the German eastern army) on the front lines to realize this. All one had to do was to look at the rising partisan threat and the growing chaos behind the German lines to appreciate that fact.
From the German point of view, something drastic had to be done. In the spring of 1944, the Germans launched a series of new anti-partisan offensives in their rear areas. The intention was to eliminate the partisan threat that was not only helping to impede the arrival of men and materiel to the front but was also a threat to German forces in case they needed to withdraw. Nowhere was this more of a clear and present danger to German forces than in Belarus, where some 180,000 guerrillas were now operating. Indeed, entire regions of the German rear area were totally controlled by the partisans.
By the time that Stalin initiated the Bagration offensive, the fight behind the lines had undoubtedly become a war within a war. Drawing on hundreds of archive documents, Dr. Muņoz examines in detail this kaleidoscope of bitter fighting, heartless cruelty and danger, as the last year of the partisan war in the Soviet Union unfolded.
About the Author
Dr Antonio J. Muņoz lives in New York City. He is a professor of history at Farmingdale State College in Long Island, New York. He is married, has two daughters and two grandchildren. His last work, published in 2018, covered the history of the German Secret Field Police in Greece, 1941–1944.
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