The First Phase: Dominance of the Axis Man for man, the German and Polish forces were an even match. Hitler committed about 1.5 million troops, and the Polish commander, Marshal Edward Smigy-Rydz, expected to muster 1.8 million. That was not the whole picture, however. The Germans had six panzer (armored) and four motorized divisions; the Poles had one armored and one motorized brigade and a few tank battalions. The Germans' 1600 aircraft were mostly of the latest …showed first 75 words of 2982 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2982 total…eir staffs believed everything would be over in a month or so. By the end of the first week in July, Army Group Center had taken 290,000 prisoners in encirclements at Biaystok and Minsk. On August 5, having crossed the Dnieper River, the last natural barrier west of Moscow, the army group wiped out a pocket near Smolensk and counted another 300,000 prisoners. On reaching Smolensk, it had covered more than two-thirds of the distance to Moscow.