In a nod to his Georgian homeland Stalin named the operation after a Georgian war hero. An incredible Red Army buildup occurred in preparation for Operation Bagration: 1.7 million personal, ~ 5,000 tanks, ~ 8,000 aircraft and ~ 33,000 artillery pieces and mortars. Against this the Germans had only ~ 1.0 million men, ~ 800 tanks, ~ 600 planes and ~ 10,000 artillery pieces and mortars. Hitler despite all the intelligence data to the contrary and input from his commanders to the contrary thought the next great Soviet offensive would be in the Balkans aimed at the Romanian oil fields, not in Belorussia. Belorussia was the last large chuck of German occupied Soviet territory. Also an incompetent commander in chief of army group center Ernst von Busch was in charge. Operation Bagration began on 22 June 1944, the same calendar day on which the Germans had previously invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, with probing attacks throughout the German lines. The main offensive began in the early morning of 23 June.
Compared to other battles, this was by far the greatest Soviet victory in numerical terms. The Red Army liberated a vast amount of Soviet territory whose population had suffered greatly under the Nazi’s. The advancing Soviets found cities destroyed, villages depopulated, and much of the population killed, or deported by the occupiers. In order to show the outside world the magnitude of the victory, some 50,000 German prisoners, taken from the encirclement east of Minsk, were paraded through Moscow: even marching quickly and twenty abreast, they took 90 minutes to pass.
The actual casualties are still in question. With German dead ranging from 100 < to > 300 thousand. Soviet dead was likely ~ 180 thousand.
The operation ceased when the Germans were able to stabilize the lines at the Narew River in Eastern Poland –Western Belorussia in August 14.
The Reich suffered almost simultaneous crushing blows with the great defeat by the Allies in Normandy – Falaise and by the Soviets in Operation Bagration in Belorussia – Eastern Europe. These dual defeat crush the German was machine once and for all. Although Germany continued to fight with determination to the war’s end.