'Freischütz' (iii) was a German small-scale attempt to relieve the forces trapped round Minsk in Belorussia (29 June/4 July 1944).

These forces had been encircled by Soviet advances in the 'Minsk Offensive Operation', itself part of the second phase of the great 'Bagration' strategic offensive of the summer of 1944. The role of General Ivan D. Chernyakhovsky’s 3^rd Belorussian Front in the first phase of 'Bagration' was essentially complete by 28 June, when its cavalry and mechanised units halted on the Berezina river. On this same day the Stavka issued a new order for the front to force a crossing of the Berezina river from the march and then to develop an offensive toward Minsk and Molodechno, capturing the former in co-operation with General Georgi F. Zakharov’s 2^nd Belorussian Front and reaching the latter no later than 8 July. Marshal of Armoured Troops Pavel A. Rotmistrov’s 5^th Guards Tank Army was criticised for its slowness in attaining its objectives, however, and ordered to display greater forcefulness under a new commander, General Polkovnik Vasili T. Volsky.

German planning at this time was concerned primarily with damage limitation. The immediate effects of the 'Vitebsk-Orsha Offensive Operation' and 'Bobruysk Offensive Operation' had made it clear that the Soviet forces had the recapture of the city of Minsk as their deeper objective. Authorisation was therefore given on 26 June for the shifting of General Karl Decker’s 5^th Panzerdivision from Generaloberst Ferdinand Schörner’s Heeresgruppe 'Südukraine' to assist in the city’s defence.

By the time the Soviet operation began, Generaloberst Gotthard Heinrici’s (from 18 July General Friedrich Hossbach’s) entire 4^th Army had been bypassed on both its northern and southern flanks but, despite this, was ordered to hold fast. Its central formation, Generalleutnant Dietrich von Saucken’s XXXIX Panzerkorps, had been effectively shattered by Soviet air attacks while trying to reach the Berezina river crossings, and had lost its previous commander, Generalleutnant Otto Schünemann, in action.

The German deployment at Minsk by Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model’s Heeresgruppe 'Mitte' was therefore based on von Saucken’s Kampfgruppe 'von Saucken' including Decker’s 5^th Panzerdivision, SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Curt von Gottberg’s Kampfgruppe 'von Gottberg' with a miscellany of security and SS units including SS-Standartenführer Günther Anhalt’s Kampfgruppe 'Anhalt' (an extemporised group of police and security units) and Generalleutnant Hermann Flörke’s Kampfgruppe 'Flörke' (another extemporised unit combining remnants of Flörke’s own 14^th Division with other elements), the encircled forces of the 4^th Army under the command of Generalleutnant Vincenz Müller (General Kurt von Tippelskirch’s XII Corps, General Paul Völckers’s XXVII Corps, and remnants of the XXXIX Panzerkorps), the encircled remnants of General Georg Pfeiffer’s VI Corps transferred from Generaloberst Hans-Georg Reinhardt’s 3^rd Panzerarmee to Müller’s command, the encircled remnants of General Nikolaus von Vormann’s 9^th Army, and Generalleutnant Max Lindig’s Kampfgruppe 'Lindig' (Generalmajor Gerhard Müller’s 12^th Panzerdivision and Generalleutnant Johann Bergen’s 390^th Feldausbildungsdivision).

The 3^rd Belorussian Front comprised General Leytenant Kuzma N. Galitsky’s 11^th Guards Army, General Leytenant Nikolai I. Krylov’s 5^th Army, General Leytenant Vasili V. Glagolev’s 31^st Army, General Leytenant Ivan I. Lyudnikov’s 39^th Army, Rotmistrov’s 5^th Guards Tank Army and a cavalry mechanised group, all supported by General Leytenant Mikhail M. Gromov’s 1^st Air Army.

The 2^nd Belorussian Front comprised General Leytenant Vasili D. Kryuchenkin’s 33^rd Army, General Leytenant Ivan T. Grishin’s 49^th Army and General Leytenant Ivan V. Boldin’s 50^th Army, all supported by General Leytenant Konstantin A. Vershinin’s 4^th Air Army.

The Soviet offensive developed through three main phases: the breakthrough of the initial German defences along the Berezina river; the advance of the Soviet motorised exploitation forces; and finally the encirclement of the 4^th Army and part of the 9^th Army after the German defensive positions had been overrun.

By 26 June the Oberkommando des Heeres had finally appreciated the fact that the continuing 'Bagration' was the primary Soviet offensive of the summer of 1944, and that its most important objectives were Minsk and the clearance of the German forces from Belorussia. This was the reason for the movement of the 5^th Panzerdivision to the north from Heeresgruppe 'Südukraine' to reach Minsk on 27 June with the unenviable, indeed impossible, task of halting the Soviet advance and preventing the complete collapse of Heeresgruppe 'Mitte'.

For the German forces, the military situation was dire: in the army group’s northern sector, the 3^rd Panzerarmee had crumbled, with General Friedrich Gallwitzer’s LIII Corps wiped out, Pfeiffer’s VI Corps shattered, and General Rolf Wuthmann’s IX Corps driven steadily to the west. In the south, the 9^th Army had lost all cohesion, its remaining troops being devastated by artillery and air bombardment.

The 4^th Army's three corps were now ordered to hold fast, despite the fact that they had already been outflanked to the north and south by the westward-driving Soviet forces. Hitler declared Minsk to be a Festerplatz that was to be held at all costs, and ordered the remnants of the 9^th Army to reinforce its defence. The 5^th Panzerdivision, which was reorganised on 28 June into a Kampfgruppe though still under von Saucken’s command, took up positions near Borisov on the main road to the north-east of Minsk, along which elements of the 4^th Army were fleeing. The division’s Panzer regiments which, unlike those of many other German armoured formations at this time, were at full strength and were concentrated in the north, screening the railway lines being used for evacuation. The road itself was held by a rearguard of infantry, while the 505^th schwere Panzerabteilung, equipped with PzKpfw Tiger I heavy tanks, held the railway line at Krupki to the east.

There were few local manpower reserves from which to create a defence. More reinforcements were provided by the Kampfgruppe 'von Gottberg', the rear-area security units of SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger’s SS-Sturmbrigade 'Dirlewanger' and SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS Boris Kaminski’s SS-Sturmbrigade 'RONA', all of which were already notorious for their series of atrocities and war crimes in the course of their 'anti-partisan' (in reality racial cleansing) activities.

The crossing points on the Berezina river to the south were defended by a number of police and security detachments organised as the Kampfgruppe 'Anhalt', and elements of divisions from Müller’s XII Corps, which had fallen back on the town of Berezino.

The 5^th Guards Tank Army was now driving toward Minsk from the north-east, General Major Nikolai D. Vedeneyev’s subordinated III Guards Tank Corps initially suffering some losses to the 5^th Panzerdivision's heavy tank battalion at Krupki, while General Major Aleksei S. Burdeiny’s II Guards Tank Corps approached from the east. The bulk of the 5^th Guards Tank Army, accompanied by the infantry divisions of Galitsky’s 11^th Guards Army, attacked straight down the Minsk road, forcing the German infantry back into Borisov by 29 June: a screen of Soviet troops was left on the road to prevent any more elements of the 4^th Army from escaping into Minsk.

The 5^th Panzerdivision's engineers blew the bridges over the Berezina river on 30 June in an attempt to deny the Soviet forces entry into Borisov. The overstretched main elements of the Kampfgruppe 'von Saucken'/e] now attempted to screen Minsk from the north-west, where the 5^th Guards Tank Army threatened to sever the railway line. The fall of the city seemed imminent: the 65^th Army was approaching from the southern route, the 5^th Guards Tank Army was making progress from the north, and the II Guards Tank Corps had crossed the Berezina. In the meantime, the four divisions of the XXXIX Panzerkorps had begun to pull back and make for the crossings at Berezino, to the south of Borisov, in an effort to escape the developing trap. A column of vehicles stretched back for many miles, under constant air attack, as the bridge was repeatedly damaged by bombing. The corps commander, Schünemann, the replacement for General Robert Martinek killed on the previous day, was himself killed on 29 June, and the entire corps began to disintegrate.