Invasion of The Soviet Union
The 4th Army took part in Operation Barbarossa in 1941 as part of von Bock's Army Group Center. Its initial aim was to trap as many Soviet troops as possible around Minsk. The 4th Army performed well and took part in the capture of Smolensk. However, the poor road network contributed to the stalling of the army group and the 4th Army. On 19 December 1941, Kluge resigned along with von Bock and Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch. Kluge was replaced by General Ludwig Kübler.
After the launching of Operation Blue, the 4th Army and the entire Army Group Center did not see much action, as troops were concentrated to the south. However, from 1943 on, as Army Group Center was in full retreat, the Fourth Army also had to move its troops backwards. The Red Army's campaign of autumn 1943, Operation Suvorov (also known as the "battle of the highways") saw the 4th Army pushed back towards Orsha and Vitebsk.
Read more about this topic: 4th Army (Wehrmacht)
Famous quotes containing the words soviet union, invasion of, invasion, soviet and/or union:
“In the Soviet Union everything happens slowly. Always remember that.”
—A.N. (Arkady N.)
“In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from the acts in which government is the mere instrument of the majority.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not the invasion of ideas.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“They were right. The Soviet régime is not the embodiment of evil as you think in the West. They have laws and I broke them. I hate tea and they love tea. Who is wrong?”
—Alexander Zinoviev (b. 1922)
“We must choose. Be a child of the past with all its crudities and imperfections, its failures and defeats, or a child of the future, the future of symmetry and ultimate success.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)