Otto Heidkämper, chief of staff of Third Panzer Army, wrote a report of the numerous offensives undertaken by the Red Army in and around Vitebsk in 1943 leading up to Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944. Being written in the 1950s, those familiar with German accounts of the fighting on the Eastern Front will find the usual here. That includes the many attempts by German commanders on the ground to make the best of the situation they found themselves in, only to be rebuffed by either Hitler's orders of those of the Army Group Commander. German forces stand defiantly against the Red aggressor, protecting Europe from the Asiatic horde. German resistance is always heroic as stoic Wehrmacht troops are outnumbered by Soviet forces but are always able to inflict countless times the damage they themselves sustain.
The most egregious example of exaggeration is one of the few times the author discusses figures for German combat capable personnel compared to that of the Soviet forces attacking the Third Panzer Army. The author lists some 19,150 men, spread out through three German corps, facing off against six Soviet armies with an estimated strength of 152,500 men. This sounds preposterous for the following reasons. Initially the author discussed the Third Panzer Army's ration strength as listed around 200,000 and, earlier, at 230,000. No additional ration strengths were provided for the army throughout the rest of the book. Taking into account the fact that support personnel were regularly forced to take up combat duties when situations escalated beyond what German frontline forces could manage, there is no way that three German corps (that at the time contained some 14 or 15 divisions) could solely consist of 19,150 combat capable men. Either the author is regularly avoiding the true casualties suffered by German forces throughout operations around Vitebsk, is over-estimating Soviet forces, or is simply downplaying the strength of an entire German Panzer Army.
Those interested in attempting to ascertain some type of 'truth' from this account will need to read between the lines. There are numerous instances of German formations facing encirclement or the threat of encirclement, hinting that Red Army commanders were continually trying to do more than launch frontal attacks. Additionally, the formations Heidkämper lists on the part of the Red Army point toward a better utilization of combined arms operations, with some coordination by artillery, tank, and infantry forces. Nonetheless, continued references to horrid weather conditions during the winter months shows that much of the Red Army's activity would undoubtedly have been nullified by the elements. The more interesting chapter is the last that discusses the opening phase of Operation Bagration. German forces defending Vitebsk were devastated within the first few days of the Red Army's offensive as Vitebsk was encircled with an entire German Corps of some 35,000. In general, within a week of fighting the Third Panzer Army went from a force of around a dozen divisions to two.
Much of the territory Heidkämper covers is hard to contextualize as readers only have his postwar account guiding them. Those interested in a more balanced view of the fighting taking place around Vitebsk, and the numerous offensive operations undertaken by the Red Army throughout 1943 and 1944, would do well to invest in David Glantz's recent "The Battle for Belorussia: The Red Army's Forgotten Campaign of October 1943 - April 1944." Here readers will be able to put into a greater context the Red Army's offensive plans, the obstacles they faced, their reported losses, etc. Glantz's title gives away much of what happened here, these offensive operations were failures and mostly forgotten as attention was devoted by Soviet and Russian historians to more victorious events, operations, and locations.
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