July 1941

Eastern Front

Hoeppner's 4th Panzer Group becomes involved in bitter fighting with mixed Soviet forces on the hastily constructed Luga defense line. Pyadyshev, commander of the LOG, is dismissed and executed. Gen Popov, commanding the North Front, is placed in charge of this position in addition to his existing responsibilities to the north of Leningrad.

Attempting to rebuild the shattered Western theater, the Stavka creates a new Central Front between the West and Southwest Fronts. Commanded by Col-Gen F. I. Kuznetsov, this formation comprises the newly reformed and redeployed 3rd Army (this unit recently having taken up defensive positions along the line of the Sozh River) and the 21st Army and is supported by 140 aircraft. The front later takes under its control Kachalov's 28th and Remezov's 13th Armies as the German attacks in the center develop.

Keitel issues a supplement to Directive No. 33, instructing the 3rd Panzer Group to move north to aid the capture of Leningrad and then move back to the center in preparation for an advance as far east as the Volga. Hoeppner's 4th Panzer Group is to be take out of the line altogether and withdrawn to Germany. Guderian is to join Kleist in the Ukraine and thrust east to occupy the Donbas and the Caucasus. Halder emphasizes the need for an autumn thrust upon Moscow, considering Leningrad and the Ukraine to be of secondary importance.