[1] The plan for the operation provided for a powerful cutting strike from the Sandomierz bridgehead towards Breslau with simultaneous encirclement of the German troops in cooperation with the 1st Belorussian and 4th Ukrainian Fronts on the adjacent wings, and their piecemeal destruction.
Subsequently, the front was slated to reach the line of Pietrkow, Radomsko, Częstochowa, and Bochnia by the tenth and eleventh days of the offensive and then advance on Breslau.
The 3rd Guards and 6th Armies were tasked with operating in cooperation with the 1st Belorussian Front to encircle and destroy the Ostrowiec grouping of German troops.
The German attempts to resist were broken by the tank corps, committed to finish the breakthrough of the main defensive line.
Their forward detachments rushed into the German rear, continuing the offensive at night, but the main forces were unable to move around the infantry in the darkness and only entered the battle on the next morning.
The 59th and 60th Armies took Krakow on 19 January, and outflanking the cities of the industrial zone from the north, continued the offensive, meeting increasing German resistance.
Breaking through the German defenses on the Warta, the army led the offensive on the Silesian industrial zone, outflanking it from the northwest.
[1] The struggle for the Silesian industrial zone, defended by nine infantry and two panzer divisions, two brigades, and more than 30 separate units, developed in the following days.
In order to avoid significant losses and preserve the key industrial facilities of Sileia, Soviet forces left a small corridor for the encircled troops, through which they retreated to the southwest.
On 29 January the Silesian industrial region was fully cleared of German troops, who were subsequently destroyed in the forests to the southwest.
[1] As a result of the offensive, the forces of the 1st Ukrainian Front destroyed the German 4th Panzer Army and main forces of the 17th Army, advanced 400 km to the west, and in cooperation with the 1st Belorussian and 4th Ukrainian Fronts liberated the southern regions of Poland, seized the Silesian industrial zone, entered German territory, and created conditions for the conduct of subsequent operations on the Berlin and Dresden axes through the creation of bridgeheads on the west bank of the Oder.
During the 23 days of the operation, the forces of the front defeated 21 infantry and five tank divisions and a significant quantity of separate units.