In the situation that now prevailed, the 2nd Army was the only German combat force with any room to manoeuvre. It had been able to retain much of its combat strength. When the Soviet forces, now in the forests surrounding Lublin, began their attack operations, so too began the 4th Panzer-Division, under the 2nd Army, and the 5th SS-Panzer-division “Wiking” supported by the 102nd Infantry-Division and the 541st Grenadier-Division, to launch intensive counter-attacks outside Czermecha.
But this concentration of strength north of Brest actually suited the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front perfectly, because his command’s main assault forces were just then crossing the Bug River between Włoda and Chełm. Marshal Rokossovskij’s plan, after broadening the bridge emplacements, was to bring the 2nd Tank Army into the fighting and order it to attack in the direction of Siedlce. In this way, his front’s left flank, with two corps from the 4th Panzer Army having been beaten down, could strike against the rear units of the 2nd Army. Then, after the planned consolidation of the attacking armies from the right flank outside Hajnówka, a large portion of General Weiß’s army would then be encircled outside Brest. Wholly unexpected, on July 21, Stalin ordered that General Bogdanovitj’s tanks were not to roll on towards Siedlce, as per east of Warsaw. the elegant plan that had been drawn up before the summer offensive, but instead, towards Lublin. The dictator wanted, as quickly as possible, to control the largest city on ethnically Polish territory, since it was there he had thought to create the marionette-like Polish Committee for National Independence (PKWN). STAVKA therefore issued an order to Rokossovskij to capture Lublin no later than July 27, as “the political situation and the democratic independent interests of Poland acutely required this.” Given such an order, behind which was hidden a power struggle between the communists and the Polish “London-government,” the commander of the 1st Belorussian Front didn’t dare to polemise. The road to Siedlce was instead cut off by General Krjukov’s newly organised rapid-response forces (the 11th Tank Corps and the 2nd Cavalry Guard Corps). This, of course, meant a weakening of the attack against the 2nd Army.
Two soldiers from the 4th Panzer-Division’s armoured reconnaissance units observe the enemy from an appropriate distance. The vehicle they are operating from is either an Sd Kfz 250 or a 251, the man on the right is using an artillery observation scope. The picture is taken in July 1944, from an area east of Warsaw
On July 22, the most vital Soviet forces had crossed the Bug and begun aggressive operations within the defence zone of the 4th Panzer Army. In the situation that now prevailed, the Germans were not capable of creating a new frontline down in the province of Lublin, not least because large contingents of the Polish Home Army had begun to swing into action against the German rear-guard. That same day, two units from the 2nd Tank Army, together with the 7th Cavalry Guards Corps, seized the town of Chełm, which led Moscow-Radio to announce that the PKWN had now been established in the city. In reality, the committee had been established two days earlier, in Moscow. Now Stalin was able to inform the Western powers that at last he had a partner with whom he could discuss Poland’s future. On July 23, he confirmed in a dispatch to Churchilclass="underline"
“The PKWN intend to build up their administration on Polish territory and I hope that this will succeed. We have not found any other forces in Poland capable of putting a Polish administration on its feet. The so-called underground organisations which are controlled by the Polish Government in London have been shown to be short- lived entities, wholly lacking in influence.”
At the very moment the British Prime Minister was reading these words, Polish Home-Army units, along with the 2nd Tank Army’s frontline troops, commenced the storming of Lublin. The battle for the city began in the morning of July 23 and was already decided only two days later, on July 25, as a complete success for the attacking troops. And despite the establishment of a provincial delegation in Lublin for the Polish government, this seemingly legal government administration could not survive within the PKWN ‘s sphere of power. On July 26, this political body undersigned an agreement with representatives of the Soviet Army where it was stipulated that: “all decision-making powers and complete responsibility for all questions related to the prosecution of the war within Polish territory where armed conflict is taking place as a result of the invasion of Soviet troops […] shall reside with the Soviet Forces’ highest commander.” The same pattern of events soon unfolded in Lublin province as had taken place in Volynien and in the Vilnius area. Partisan units were cleverly disarmed by the NKVD (the forerunner of the KGB) or were forced at gun point to lay down their weapons. Officers and political delegates were arrested, while non-commissioned officers and common soldiers in the Home Army were incorporated into General Berling’s army. Some of the representatives of this underground government went back to their secret operations.
At the same time, events at the front became increasingly intense. The 2nd Tank Army had reached Lublin even sooner than the headquarters’ directive had planned. But during the fighting outside of Bystrzyca on the night spanning July 23-24, General Bogdanov was seriously wounded. His command was taken over by the tank army’s chief of staff, General Aleksiej Radzjijevskij. On July 24, the 1st Belorussia Front’s left flank, together with 3rd Guards Army from the 1st Ukrainian Front, crushed the German 4th Panzer-Army. The defeated divisions from the VIII Army-Corps retreated in chaos to the outskirts of Biała Podlaska to the rearguard area of the 2nd Army. The decimated LVI Panzer-Corps, on the other hand, escaped by fleeing across the Wisła opposite Lublin. In this way, a 70 kilometre wide gap was opened up in the German lines between Puławay and Łuków. This gap was filled by the 2nd Tank Army, the 8th Guards Army, the 47th Army and the 7th Cavalry Guards Corps. When Radzjijevskij took over command, there were no enemy forces worthy of mention standing between his armoured corps and Warsaw.