Editing Counterattack (section)

=== Operation Bagration ===

[[File:Belorussia_Operation_Detailed.svg|thumb|316x316px|This map shows the point of attack during Operation Bagration and how the counterattack was executed.]]
[[Operation Bagration]] is one of the largest counteroffensives in military history. In the summer of 1944 the assault, made up by roughly 1.7 million Red Army soldiers, succeeded in putting the Red Army on the offensive in the Eastern Front, as well as recapturing a large portion of the Soviet Union territory that Nazi Germany had captured 3 years prior in the summer of 1941 during [[Operation Barbarossa]].

The [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] counterattack focused on Belorussia, but prior to the counterattack starting, the Soviet Union fooled Nazi military leaders into believing that the attack would take place further south, near Ukraine.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=Battle for Belorussia : the Red Army's forgotten campaign of October 1943-April 1944|last=Glantz|first=Mary E.|isbn=9780700623297|oclc=947149001|year = 2016|publisher=University Press of Kansas }}</ref>

To aid the deception, the Red Army established fake army camps in Ukraine and after German reconnaissance planes reported Soviet troop concentrations in the area, [[panzer]] and infantry divisions were rushed south from Belorussia, leaving it vulnerable to a major assault.

To support the attack, partisan groups in German-controlled territory were instructed to destroy German railroads to hamper German efforts to transport supplies and troops throughout the occupied territories and further weaken German Army Group Centre in Ukraine.<ref name=":2" />

On 22 June 1944, the attack on Belarus by 1.7 million Soviet troops began and overwhelmed the depleted Germans defenders.

On 3 July, the Red Army captured Minsk, and later the rest of Belorussia.

Operation Bagration was a huge Soviet success and opened a direct route to Berlin after the fall of Belorussia, leading to the Red Army beginning to take over the territory that had been taken by the Wehrmacht three years before.<ref name=":2" />