Army Group Vistula was an Army Group of the Wehrmacht, formed on 24 January 1945. It lasted for 105 days, having been put together from elements of Army Group A, Army Group Centre, and a variety of new or ad hoc formations. It was formed to protect Berlin from the Soviet armies advancing from the Vistula River.
Briefing at the headquarters of Army Group Vistula
Image: Bundesarchiv Bild 183 S72707, Heinrich Himmler
Image: Gotthard Heinrici
Image: Bundesarchiv Bild 146 1979 128 26, Bernhard Hermann Ramcke, Kurt Student crop
The Vistula–Oder offensive was a Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in the European theatre of World War II in January 1945. The army made a major advance into German-held territory, capturing Kraków, Warsaw and Poznań. The Red Army had built up their strength around a number of key bridgeheads, with two fronts commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev. Against them, the German Army Group A, led by Colonel-General Josef Harpe, was outnumbered five to one. Within days, German commandants evacuated the concentration camps, sending the prisoners on their death marches to the west, where ethnic Germans also started fleeing. In a little over two weeks, the Red Army had advanced 480 kilometres (300 mi) from the Vistula to the Oder, only 69 kilometres (43 mi) from Berlin, which was undefended. However, Zhukov called a halt, owing to continued German resistance on his northern flank (Pomerania), and the advance on Berlin had to be delayed until April.
Soviet troops enter Łódź, led by an ISU-122 self-propelled gun
Disposition of forces and advance of the Soviet Army
Delegation of German officers arriving to negotiate for the capitulation of Festung Breslau
Vistula–Oder offensive