Prelude
The Soviet Belorussian Offensive of June–August 1944 (commonly known as Operation Bagration) had seen the German Army Group Centre nearly destroyed and driven from what is now Belarus, most of what is now Lithuania and much of Poland. During August and September of that year, a series of German counter-offensives - Operations Doppelkopf and Casar - succeeded in stalling the Soviet advance and maintaining the connection between the German Army Groups Centre and North; however Stavka made preparations for an attack by the 1st Baltic Front against the positions of Third Panzer Army and thence towards Memel, splitting the two Army Groups.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Memel
Famous quotes containing the word prelude:
““We’re all friends here” is a prelude to fraud. “I am sincere” is a prelude to lying.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)