Report from the Commander of the forces of the 1st Ukrainian front to the Supreme Commander about adversary's attempts to eliminate the bridgehead on Vistula.

23rd August 1944

Beginning on this year's 5th of August the forces of the 1st Ukrainian front are in constant fierce battles aimed at holding on and enlargening the bridgeheads on the Western bank of Vistula river and Vistloka river.

The enemy considers Krakow direction as very important because it covers the largest German industrial region in Silesia and has gathered considerable tank and infantry forces, pulled from the reserves of other fronts. In front of our bridgeheads the adversary has concentrated 8 tank divisions, 4 separate tank battallions, 2 separate brigades of self propelled guns (alltogether 600-700 tanks and SPGs), 9 infantry divisions, 1 motodivision, 5 separate infantry brigades, 1 artillery division.

Alltogether there are
8 tank divisions that operate against our front (1, 3, 8, 16, 17, 66, 23, 24),
1 motodivision (20th),
14 infantry divisions (253, 342, 241, 72, 88, 371, 213th protective, 96, 7, 544, 545, 208, 68, 114)
5 separate infantry brigades (1, 1133, 1134, 1135, 1136),
1 artillery division (18th),
4 separate tank battallions,
2 separate SPG brigades,
6 separate infantry regiments,
and up to 50 various separate battalions (reserve, sapper, protective, builder)

Adversary (for the period from 5th to 22nd August) has created a strike force on the Western bank of Vistula consisting of six tank divisions, one motodivision, and seven infantry divisions and others. He has launched four large counter attacks against our forces with objective (as discovered from prisoner interrogations and captured documents) to eliminate and throw back our forces to the Eastern bank of Vistula river.

In fierce battles our forces have broken the offensive intentions of the advarsary to eliminate the bridgeheads on the Western bank of Vistula and Vistloka and inflicted massive damage to the enemy in manforce, tanks and materials.

Over 40 thousand German soldiers and officers killed. Knocked out and destroyed 678 tanks and SPG, 465 artillery systems, 137 APCs, 119 airplanes, 484 mortars 854 machine guns.

Adversary, as the prisoner interrogations show, plans to continue his offensives with aim to eliminate our bridgeheads; is constantly reinforcing his troops and reparing vehicles. We get daily reports about reinforcements heading towards the front by railroads and highways from Krakow and Chenstohow in form of tanks, artillery and infantry.

Konev
Sokolovsky
Krainyukov

ЦАМО РФ. Ф. 236. Оп. 2712. Д. 56. Л. 429-430.