Hitler’s War Against the Partisans During Operation Bagration: Spring and Summer of 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 naïve 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 (t