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The 29th Motorized Infantry Division and the “Grossdeutschland” Infantry Regiment, who were keeping the big pocket around the Russian armies closed in the Slonim area, east of the forest, were involved on 29th June in fierce fighting against enemy forces attempting to break out.
The infantry divisions of the Fourth and Ninth Armies had still not arrived to finish off the encircled Russians. True, they were hastening to the scene, in forced marches along terrible roads, covered in sweat and dust. But until they arrived the pocket had to be kept sealed by the 29th Motorized Infantry Division and Hoth’s 18th Motorized Infantry Division, as well as by 19th Panzer Division. These units were itching to be relieved of their prison guard duties; they were anxious to move on, towards the east, towards their great strategic objective— Smolensk.

We've got to strike at the root of these continuous Russian break-out attempts. We've got to ferret them out of their woods Lieutenant-Colonel Franz, the Chief of Operations of 29th Motorized Infantry Division, suggested to his commander, Major-General von Boltenstern. The divisional commander agreed.
"Colonel Thomas to the commander!" The CO of the Thuringian 71st Infantry Regiment reported at headquarters. Maps were studied. A plan was worked out. And presently Thomas's combat group moved off into the wooded ground on the Zelvyanka sector, with parts of 10th Panzer Division, Panzerjägers (Panzer killers), two battalions of 71st Infantry Regiment, two artillery detachments, and sappers. They moved in two wedge-shaped formations. The divisional commander went along with them. Only then did they discover the kind of forces they had to deal with—considerable parts of the Soviet Fourth Army which, having rallied at Zelvyanka, were now trying to fight their way out of the pocket to the east. They intended to break through towards the Berezina. There they hoped they would be able to hold a new defensive position, the Yeremenko Line, which they had been told about in radio messages.

Numerically the German formations were greatly inferior. The Russians fought fanatically and were led by resolute officers and commissars who had not been affected by the panic which followed the first defeats. They broke through, cut off Thomas's combat group, moved their tanks against the rear of the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, and tried to recapture the railway-bridge to Zelva.
The divisional staff officers were lying in the infantry foxholes with carbines and machine pistols. Lieutenant-Colonel Franz commanded a hurriedly established road-block of antitank guns. The Russians were stopped. And at long last the German infantry divisions arrived. The 29th Motorized Infantry Division was able to move off to the north, towards new operations of decisive importance. A fortnight later the division's name would be on everybody's lips.

The Berezina, literally the "Birch River," a right-bank tributary of the Dnieper, enjoys a fame of its own in Russian history. It was here that in November 1812 Napoleon, retreating from Moscow, suffered those crushing losses which meant the final end of his Grande Armée. There is no doubt that Yeremenko too had this historic precedent in mind when, in the evening of 29th June 1941, upon assuming command of the Soviet Western Front in the Minsk area, he issued his first order. It ran:

"The Berezina crossings are to be held at all costs. The Germans must be halted at the river."

When Yeremenko issued this order he was not yet aware of the full extent of the Soviet disaster on the Central Front. He supposed fighting divisions where none were left. He relied upon defenses which had long been abandoned. He wanted to hold the Germans on the Berezina at a time when the marching orders of Guderian's Panzer divisions already mentioned the Dnieper. He placed his hopes in units which were already shuffling into captivity, such as General Potaturchev's 4th Armoured Division.

How Yeremenko's hopes came to naught was recounted to the author by General Nehring, commanding the German 18th Panzer Division. "In the evening of 29th June," Nehring recalled, "the spearheads of 18th Panzer Division had reached Minsk. Parts of Hoth's Panzer Group—the 20th Panzer Division—had taken the city on 28th June. The 18th Panzer Division was ordered to drive past Minsk in the south, along the motor highway, towards Borisov on the Berezina, and to form a bridgehead there. At the time the whole enterprise seemed like suicide, but it was nothing of the sort. However, that could hardly have been foreseen. The division, relying entirely upon itself, thrust some sixty miles into enemy-held territory."

Nehring moved off early on 30th June. Ahead lay excellent new roads. The tank commanders were delighted. But presently the division met Russian resistance from strongly fortified positions. The Russians fought desperately. It was clear that Yeremenko's orders had been : Hold out or die. He needed time to establish a new line of defences. Could the race against time be won? Nehring was determined to outrace Yeremenko. While the bulk of his division was engaged against the Russians he formed an advanced detachment under Major Teege —the 2nd Battalion, 18th Panzer Regiment, and with them, riding on the tanks, men of the regiment's motor-cycle battalion and parts of a reconnaissance detachment, as well as Major Teichert's artillery battalion.

By noon on 1st July Teege had reached Borisov. The Russians were taken by surprise but resisted furiously. They were officer-cadets and NCOs of the armoured forces training college in Borisov. They were crack troops. They realized the importance of the bridge over the Berezina. They defended it fanatically, but, strangely enough, did not blow it up. The German advanced detachment suffered heavy losses. Yeremenko threw into the battle whatever he could lay hands on in the Borisov area. But then the bulk of the German division came up. In the early afternoon two battalions of 52nd Rifle Regiment, supported by tanks, launched an assault on the Russian bridgehead on the western bank. 10th Company of this regiment worked its way through the Soviet defenses. Sergeant Bukatschek led No. 1 Platoon. He reached the bridge. He fought down the two machine-gun posts on the ramp. He got a rifle bullet in his shoulder, but regardless he raced across the bridge with his men and captured the demolition squad on the other bank before the Soviet lieutenant could push down the plunger.

Teege's tanks and the motor-cycle troops, together with Laube's anti-aircraft battery, crossed the Berezina. The 8-8-cm. guns of the second battery secured the bridge against Soviet attacks. On the following morning, at first light, when Soviet crack battalions drove down the road on lorries from Borisov in order to eliminate the bridgehead, Second Lieutenant Doll with his 8-8-cm. battery blasted the column off the highroad and, at the cost of heavy losses, held the vital bridge against snipers, assault detachments, and tanks. The river, fateful since Napoleon's campaign in Russia, had been conquered. The road to the Dnieper was clear. Fifty miles farther south General Model's 3rd Panzer Division had already crossed the river at Bobruysk, and farther south still 4th Panzer Division, of General Freiherr Geyr von Schweppenburg's corps, was likewise across and driving towards Mogilev. Yeremenko had lost the round on the Berezina. The date was 2nd July 1941, the day when Alexander Rado in Geneva sent the radio signal to the Kremlin: " The object of the German operation is Moscow."

On the following day Marshal Timoshenko personally assumed supreme command of the Russian Western Front. Yeremenko became his second-in-command.