On July 31, 1941, units of German Army Group Center led by two panzer groups entered the Russian city of Smolensk, located 400 km west of Moscow. The Germans met fierce Soviet resistance during the two-month battle, but with the city’s capture, German Army Group Center had advanced 500 km into Soviet territory within 18 days since the start of Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. At Smolensk, the Germans encircled and destroyed three Soviet armies (the 16th, 19th, and 20th), capturing 300,000 troops and 3,200 tanks. As well, the Soviets suffered 180,000 troops killed and 170,000 wounded. German infantry units again were delayed in closing the gap with their panzer spearheads, allowing large numbers of Soviet troops (from the 19th and 20th armies) to escape to the east.
German Army Group Center also suffered heavy losses in men and material in the drawn-out battle. Historians have conjectured that German Army Group Center’s two-month delay on its advance to Moscow was consequential to its eventual defeat at the Battle of Moscow in December 1941.
(Taken from Wars of the 20th Century – World War II in Europe)
Operation Barbarossa: Central Sector On June 22, 1941, German Army Group Center (with 1.3 million troops, 2,600 tanks, and 7,800 artillery pieces), based in Poland, attacked into Soviet-occupied eastern Poland, where the uneven border arising from the 1939 partition of the country created salients whose weak flanks could be exploited by an invading force. German Army Group Center had the greatest concentration of tanks comprising two panzer groups, as Hitler anticipated that this sector’s campaign into Moscow would be strongly resisted by the Red Army. To exploit the Soviet salient at Bialystok, the two panzer groups crossed the frontier in a flanking maneuver, with the 2nd Panzer Group to the south and bypassing Brest, and 3rd Panzer Group to the north advancing for Vilnius, with both groups aiming for Minsk, 400 miles to the east. Meanwhile, German Army Group Center’s three field armies also advanced north and south of the Bialystok salient, forming another set of pincers.
On June 23, 1941, a Red Army counter-attack was stopped. The next day, another Soviet counter-offensive, led by an armored force of over 1,000 tanks, advanced for Grodno to break the looming encirclement, but met disaster caused as much by fierce German air attacks as by mechanical breakdowns of the tanks and shortage of fuel. Another Soviet attack with 200 tanks on June 25 also ended in failure.
On June 27, 1941, the German 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups met up at Minsk, and the next day, German Army Group Center’s second pincers closed shut east of Bialystok. The trapped Soviet forces at Bialystok, Navahrudak, and Minsk continued to resist, while elimination of these pockets by the Wehrmacht was delayed by lack of adequate German motor transports to hasten the advance of infantry units. Full encirclement of Soviet forces also was compromised as the German 2nd Panzer, which was led by General Heinz Guderian (an advocate of armored blitzkrieg tactics), continued advancing east in contravention of Hitler’s pause order, which left gaps in the cordon that allowed Soviet units to escape. In the end, in the Bialystok-Minsk battles, although the Germans captured 300,000 Soviet troops, as well as 3,000 tanks, and 1,500 artillery pieces, some 250,000 Red Army soldiers escaped.
An annoyed Hitler faulted the panzer commanders for achieving only a partial capture of the trapped Soviets; in turn, the German commanders blamed the slow advance of the supporting infantry units. But in the aftermath, the Soviet Western Front was destroyed, with two field armies obliterated and three others severely incapacitated.
German Army Group Center then continued east toward Smolensk, which commanded the road to Moscow. The German advance was again spearheaded by panzers, with 2nd Panzer Group advancing in the south and 3rd Panzer Group in the north with the aim of meeting up and encircling Smolensk. On Stalin’s orders, five Soviet armies from the strategic reserve were deployed in Smolensk, reinforcing the Soviet 13th Army there in essentially reconstituting the Soviet Western Front. The Soviets formed a new defensive line around the city, and also took up positions along the old Stalin Line along the Dnieper and Dvina rivers.
On July 6, 1941, Soviet armored units, comprising 1,500 tanks, attacked toward Lepiel, but were repulsed and nearly wiped out by a German tank and anti-tank counter-attack. Then on July 11 and the following days, the Red Army launched more counter-attacks, which all failed to stall the Germans. On July 13, German 2nd Panzer Group took Mogilev, trapping several Soviet armies. Two days later, the Germans entered Smolensk, leading to fierce house-to-house fighting in the city. German 3rd Panzer Group, advancing from the north, was stalled by swampy terrain that was exacerbated by the seasonal rains. But in late July 1941, it too entered Smolensk, and the two panzer groups closed shut and trapped three Soviet armies comprising 300,000 troops and 3,200 tanks. As well, the Soviets suffered 180,000 troops killed and 170,000 wounded. German infantry units again were delayed in closing the gap with the panzer spearheads, which allowed large numbers of Soviet troops to escape to the east.