Closing a ring around Poznań

On 22nd January, after reaching the area of Swarzędz, which is located directly to the east of Poznań, the troops of the Red Army (using forces of the 21st Tank Brigade) made an attempt to conquer the city off-hand. Although this attack from the east encountered a decisive resistance from the Germans, who situated on the nearest hills, stopped the attack of the Soviet tanks with the help from the batteries of anti-aircraft warfare (cal 88).

Due to this tactic failure of the 8th Mechanized Corps at the beginning, the Soviet headquaters decided about outflanking the city as well as attacking it from different directions. That night the Russians reached the Warta (to the south of Poznań) in the area of Czapury and, eliminating weak German posts, seized a bridgehead on the west bank. This allowed them to start building passages immediately for tanks of the 1st Guards Tank Army with general Katukov and few days later also the tanks of the 8th Guards Army with Vasily Chuikov to help these armies pass the river. The Red Army soldiers were determined, therefore at night between 23rd and 24th January the troop with Katukov (using few armoured personnel carriers and amoured cars) reached the west edge of Poznań, where the Ławica-airport is located, and the soldiers destroyed over 100 airplanes of the enemy there. That particular action automatically stopped German air attacks from harming created passages.

At the same time, after the initial failure with conquering the city, the Soviets were able to cross the Warta to the north of Poznań – in the Miękowo area where also new passages for their heavy equipment were built. And finally by the 25th of January,  due to the fact that they were launching the flanking attacks, German garrison Festung Posen became totally surrounded.