The Soviet 1944 Summer offensive
Solid red line: the front on July 15, 1944.
Broken red line: the front on August 1
Red arrows: the direction of action and the extent of the Bielorussian Front.
On July 21, 1944, at a conference of three generals of the AK (Armia Krajowa, the Home Army) - Tadeusz Komorowski, Tadeusz Pe³czynski and Leopold Okalicki - is is agreed that Warsaw should be liberated from the German occupants by the armed action of Polish forces. The Soviet Red Army upon entering Warsaw should find it in Polish hands. It should be met by both Polish military and civilian authorities.
On the same day, General Komorowski, the Commander in Chief of the Home Army, wrote in a telegram that three German Armies had been destroyed by the Soviets and that the German High Command had not introduced fresh units in sufficient strength to stem the Soviet advance. He ascribed the slowing down of the Soviet offensive to temporary fatigue and judged that the German forces, shaken by the July 20th attempt to assassinate Hitler, were no longer in a position to retrieve the initiative from the hands of the Soviets. |
