Battle of Brody (1941)

The Battle of Brody (other names in use include Battle of Dubna, Battle of Dubno, Battle of Rovne, Battle of Rovne-Brody) was a tank battle fought between the 1st Panzer Group's IIIrd, XLVIII Army Corps (Motorized) and five Soviet Mechanized Corps in Soviet-occupied Poland between 26 and 30 June 1941 known in Soviet historiography as the Ukrainian Border Defensive Battles. Although the Red Army formations inflicted heavy losses on the German forces, they were outmaneuvered and suffered large losses in tanks. This was of the most intense armoured engagements in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa and remained the largest tank battle of World War II until the Battle of Kursk two years later.

The Soviet forces, several times stronger in men and material, began their offensive against Lviv with advances in the direction of Ternopil–Zolochiv to the south and Radekhiv–Buzk to the north of the town of Brody. During the battle individual regiments of the division—then stationed on the second line of the front—were dispatched to the areas of heaviest fighting to close gaps. On 18 JulySoviet forces surrounded the corps and destroyed it. On 21–22 July the survivors broke out of the encirclement near the villages of Kniazhe and Pochany and moved south towards the Podolian Upland (Holohory–Peremyshliany). Of the division's 11,000 soldiers, 3,000 returned from Brody and regrouped in Serednie, Transcarpathia. After the battle some members of the division joined up with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Many were taken as prisoners of war.