How was the liberation of Prague (Prague operation)? Prague operation: results

As a result of the Prague operation, the Red Army liberated the capital of Czechoslovakia and thus completed the Second World War in Europe. The city was cleared of the Wehrmacht forces the very next day after Germany signed the surrender act.

The day before

In the spring of 1945, the Berlin and Prague operations became the final chords of the defeat of the Nazi regime in Europe. When the capital of Germany had already surrendered, the capital of the Czech Republic was not yet affected by the fighting. The Soviet army was waiting for the order to advance on Prague. At the final stage of the war, the whole of Europe turned into a pie that shared the victorious countries. For some time there were talks about a possible attack on Prague by the American army. But in the end, Czechoslovakia passed into the sphere of influence of the USSR.

In the evening of May 8, when the German command was already signing an act of surrender, a Soviet ultimatum was delivered to Prague. The Nazis, who held the city under their control, were offered to surrender unconditionally. They gave them a day to think. In case of refusal, an offensive operation began. The Prague group of the Wehrmacht was significant. Here, on the last line, the army group "Center" stopped, which for the whole second half of the war was retreating from the Soviet Union. In total, there were about 900,000 Nazi soldiers in the city, as well as their allies who fled to Prague from all corners of liberated Europe.

Organization of the operation

With the preliminary preparation for the operation, the Soviet command paid special attention to the creation of large artillery groups. By the beginning of the last offensive, about 6,000 guns and mortars had been collected. At the final stage of the war, the Red Army did not have a security problem. This operation was not an exception. The Prague attack was accompanied by the flights of the 2nd Air Army under the command of General Stepan Krasovsky. Nearly 2,000 aircraft were involved in the main direction, while another 400 were involved in auxiliary ones.

All decisions related to the determination of the size of the troops used were taken by the leadership of the 2nd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts. This was an initiative "from below", which only after consideration "on the spot" was approved by the Stavka. What, from the point of view of the organization, was this operation complicated? The Prague, the final "chapter" of the Great Patriotic War, "was being written" in an incredible hurry. For example, the forces of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts had to regroup in just three days. It was about distances of 100-200 kilometers and huge masses of people.

The beginning of the persecution

On May 6, the Red Army intelligence reported that the enemy had begun an organized retreat from the retained Czech regions at a distance of about 100 kilometers from Prague. Soviet forces began to pursue the enemy. The Wehrmacht rearguards were stymied and dispersed by the advance detachments of the First Ukrainian Front. The Prague operation, the results of which consisted in the actual end of the entire war, represented a pursuit of fleeing Germans. Very few people resisted. Basically, these were people who faithfully believed in Nazi ideology and decided that if they were defeated in the war, they would still have nothing to lose.

The main strategy for destroying the enemy was powerful convergent blows on the enemy's flanks. So the Germans were not only surrounded, but also dissected, becoming less dangerous. The interaction of the Red Army units proved to be effective. At the beginning of the operation, these were mainly the 2nd and 4th Ukrainian fronts, and then the 1st and 2nd fronts. The offensive of the tanks was rapid, even though they had to operate in a mountainous wooded area. They advanced 60-100 kilometers per day.

On the same day (May 6) the 4th Guards Tank Army was already near the slopes of the Ore Mountains. This was a blow from the unexpected Dresden direction, which allowed to encircle the Wehrmacht 40,000-strong force in Breslau. On May 7, the offensive of forces of the 2nd Ukrainian Front began. The 7th Guards Army, Shumilov, immediately broke through the defenses of the Germans and advanced a distance of 12 kilometers. At the same time, troops of the 4th Ukrainian Front fought for Olomouc - an important transport hub that connected the whole of the Czech Republic.

Escape from Prague

The swift advance of the Red Army on all sectors of the front demoralized the already lost faith in the victory of the fascists. The commander of German troops in the capital of Czechoslovakia was Ferdinand Scherner. He ordered the evacuation to the west. The Germans preferred to surrender to the Americans, rather than the Soviet Union. The organized retreat in Prague began on 9 May. However, very soon it ceased to be controlled by anyone and developed into a stampede.

Meanwhile, the shock grouping of the 2nd Ukrainian Front broke through yet another line of defense of the enemy. She advanced 60 kilometers by establishing control over Znojmo. The left wing of this army was on the bank of the Danube and began to move along its northern coast, discarding the German rear guard. During these three days, Soviet aviation carried out more than 7,000 sorties, supporting the attacks of the Ukrainian fronts.

Liberation of the city

On May 9, parts of the 1st Ukrainian Front entered Prague. Now the Red Army and the representatives of the special services had to prevent the Germans from escaping from the encirclement. In this they were helped by Czech partisans, who knew the city and the surroundings much better than foreigners.

More than 50 divisions were located to the east of Prague. These were the main forces of the enemy grouping. The German soldiers were disorganized, their commanders lost any control over their subordinates. To flee to the Americans managed only to certain divisions belonging to the army group "Austria".

Surrounding ROA

The Prague offensive was carried out not only against the Wehrmacht, but against the ROA, the Russian Liberation Army. In this formation were Soviet collaborators, who at the beginning of the war went on to cooperate with Germany. In the spring of 1945, the ROA decided to urgently evacuate to the west in order not to fall into the hands of the Soviet authorities.

On May 12, the commander of this army, General Vlasov, was arrested. He and many other ROA officers were taken to the USSR. There they were tried and shot. Ordinary ROA soldiers who were captured during an operation in Prague, mostly found themselves in camps and exile.

Last resistance

The remnants of the retreating SS troops were destroyed on the night of May 12. In the battle, the head of the local administration of the "death squads" Karl Friedrich von Puckler-Burghaus also perished. This latter grouping consisted of the divisions "Das Reich" and "Wallenstein".

The detachment reached the border with the Americans on May 9, but they refused to accept the surrender of the fugitives. Then the cornered Germans created a small fortified camp. In the evening of May 11 they were attacked by a group of Chekists from the People's Commissariat of the State Defense of the USSR. Soon joined the Red Army. By the morning of May 12 this last Nazi detachment was destroyed. Thus ended the Prague operation. Year by year, residents of the city on the days of anniversaries pay tribute to the memory of the Soviet liberators. Their names are named streets and parks. Marshal Konev, who led the offensive operation, became an honorary citizen of the city of Balti.

Losses and results

For the two million soldiers of the Red Army and the allied states (Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia), this operation was the end of the war. The Prague defense of the Germans was a desperate attempt by a few detachments to escape from the encirclement. However, these clashes led to large losses - in total 12,000 Red Army soldiers died in the fighting.

In a few days of operation, the Soviet units succeeded in destroying or capturing about 860,000 soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the SS. Sixty generals of the Army Group Center and others were captured. 9,500 captured guns and mortars, 1,000 aircraft, 1,8 thousand assault guns and tanks, as well as other all kinds of weapons and military equipment were captured.

On May 11, the Prague operation came to a logical conclusion. The Soviet military reached the line of contact with the Americans. It was carried out along the border with the cities of Chemnitz and Plzen. Since that moment, Czechoslovakia has been in the sphere of Soviet influence for many years. Communist power was established in this country. The state joined the Warsaw Treaty Organization.

The operations of 1945 and 1968.

Due to further developments in socialist Czechoslovakia, the operation in Prague (1945) and the operation of the Prague Spring of 1968 are often compared. The last one began when the Soviet government introduced troops to the capital of the Slavic country, arguing for its decision "normalizing the political situation." In 1968, in Czechoslovakia, liberal reforms were going on all the way, which the leaders of the USSR did not like, as their consequence could be the withdrawal of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from the zone of communist influence.

The Prague Spring, Operation "Danube" and subsequent events have become an important part of the Cold War. Today in the Czech Republic, the attitude towards the events of 1945 and 1968. The exact opposite. In the first case, Soviet troops came to Prague as liberators from the Nazis, and in the second the same army caterpillar tanks crushed the democratic freedoms of the Czechoslovak citizens.