The Don and Kharkov 1943
Pz. IIIM from Pz. Regt 11of the 6th Panzer Division.
Pz. IVH from Pz. Regt 3 of the 2nd Panzer Division.
A view of Kharkov’s Red Square. This great prize was the second city of the Ukraine and the fourth largest in the Soviet Union, and its liberation was a major coup for the Red Army. However, Manstein’s brilliant counteroffensive not only recaptured the city in March, it also meant that the Germans had regained the Donets-Mius line.
The liberation of Kharkov on 15 February 1943. The Soviet reoccupation lasted one month. Here, two T-34/76s drive through the city’s central plaza’s Red Square. The Germans had withdrawn swiftly, hence the relatively undamaged appearance of the buildings. The architecture is typical of the Soviet municipal style of the period.
On 15 November Army Group B had, on its order of battle, 76 divisions, but of these, 36 were allied (Romanian and Italian) formations that were low in infantry and antitank weapons. These allied troops were placed on the flanks of the Sixth Army following the orders contained in Directive 41. Unfortunately these divisions were occupying positions of great responsibility for which they were entirely ill-equipped. As the daily slaughter in Stalingrad continued and the weather deteriorated, the Soviets began to assemble their forces for a counterattack which was designed to trap the Sixth Army.
The Soviet counteroffensive was codenamed Uranus and was to be commanded by Marshal G.A. Zhukov. Its aim was simply to encircle all Axis forces within its grasp by a gigantic pincer movement. The first pincer was to be launched by the South-West and Don Fronts to the north of Stalingrad on 19 November. The second pincer, to the south of the city, was Colonel-General Eremenko’s Stalingrad Front, which was to attack on 20 November.
The northern pincer struck the Romanian Third Army, which rapidly collapsed and thus allowed a Soviet cavalry corps to pour into the breach. A similar breakthrough took place on the following day as the southern pincer attacked. The next day Eremenko’s cavalry cut the Novorossisk—Stalingrad railway line. So rapid were the movements of the Soviet pincers that they linked up at the village of Sovietskiy during the morning of 23 November. Paulus and his men were encircled. That afternoon Hitler ordered Paulus to “take up a hedgehog position and await help from outside.” During the evening of 23 November Paulus requested permission to break out, as he reasoned that the “enemy has not yet succeeded in closing the gap to west and southwest. But his preparations for attack are becoming evident.”
Convinced by Hermann Göring, commander of the Luftwaffe, that it was possible to airlift at least 508 tonnes (500 tons) of the 711 tonnes (700 tons) of supplies required daily by the Sixth Army, Hitler did not rescind his stand-fast orders, despite the protests of several of his senior officers. Following discussions with his staff, Paulus ordered his men to dig in, and the Stalingrad pocket — some 45km (37 miles) from the city to its western extremity and 30km (25 miles) from north to south — was created. Inside the pocket were some 250,000 Axis troops.
To deal with this crisis Hitler created Army Group Don, commanded by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, specifically to drive through the Soviet lines and relieve the Sixth Army. On 12 December Manstein’s attack went in, but its spearhead only reached to within 55km (40 miles) of Stalingrad and, to avoid encirclement, Army Group Don began to withdraw on Christmas Eve.
A further Soviet offensive, this time aimed at the Italian Eighth Army and the remnants of the Romanian Fifth Army, began on 16 December. Within 48 hours the Axis front had collapsed and again the Red Army poured in to exploit the breach. Moreover what little chance the Luftwaffe had had of supplying the Sixth Army was reduced even further by the loss of its forward airfields, and each transport plane’s journey increased to a round trip of some 480km (300 miles) through increasingly effective Soviet air defences. The fate of the Sixth Army was sealed. Now it remained to be seen how long it could occupy the attention of the Red Army and allow Axis forces in the Caucasus time to escape as the Soviets prepared to drive farther to the west. Abandoning Krasnodar, Field Marshal Ewald von Kleists Army Group A withdrew into the Taman peninsula, situated opposite to the Crimea, nursing the hope of renewing their Caucasian ambitions at a later date.
Chuikov offered Paulus the opportunity to surrender but this was not taken, and on 22 January the final Soviet attack began. Inexorably, and in bitter weather, the Red Army advanced and the pocket became smaller. In a futile effort to prevent surrender, as no German field marshal had ever been taken prisoner, Hitler promoted Paulus to the rank of field marshal on 31 January, but on that day he was captured. Two days later the last German detachments in the city surrendered. To the west Manstein was desperately creating a defence line along the banks of the River Mius, having abandoned Rostov on 14 February.
Now the Soviets began to overreach themselves. Flushed with success, they launched Operation Gallop, commanded by General M.M. Popov, on 29 January. Gallop was a large-scale raid undertaken by several tank corps moving in different directions, with the objective of exploiting the empty spaces and confusion behind the Axis lines and keeping them off balance. Scraping together what little armour he could, Manstein succeeded in driving back Popov’s main force and destroying another tank corps which had almost reached the River Dnieper at Zaporozhye, near Mansteins headquarters, during the last days of February 1943.
The Soviets opened a second improvised offensive, Operation Star, on 2 February, with the cities of Belgorod, Kursk and Kharkov as its objectives. Following the surrender of Stalingrad six Soviet armies were released for use elsewhere. These troops were to be deployed as part of an ambitious plan to encircle German forces in and around the city of Orel. When this had been achieved the next objective was to link up with other Soviet forces in a pincer movement and trap the Germans between Smolensk and Briansk. The ultimate goal of all these actions was to reach the River Dnieper by the middle of March and thus destroy the remains of Army Group Don, the southernmost part of Army Group South.
Colonel-General K.K. Rokossovsky was to command the Central Front, which was to be created from formations that had fought at Stalingrad. However, the difficulties in moving men and equipment some 200km (150 miles) along a single track railway led to Rokossovsky’s participation in the offensive being postponed until 25 February. The Briansk and Western Fronts had attacked before Rokossovsky’s arrival and ran into solid resistance. Rokossovsky’s men, arriving and attacking piecemeal, broke through German and Hungarian units on 25 February allowing XI Tank Corps to exploit the gap. XI Tank Corps, operating with cavalry and partisans, penetrated over 200km (125 miles) into the German rear, reaching the River Desna on 7 March. By this time Rokossovsky’s forces were spread out along the few serviceable roads, presenting a clear target for the counteroffensive that the Germans were developing from the south.
Manstein had concluded that the Red Army could be held and then driven back by adopting a mobile defensive strategy. This involved allowing the Soviets to advance until they had outrun their supply lines and then confronting them from prepared defensive positions. Inevitably this doctrine meant giving up ground, which was anathema to Hitler. However, Manstein felt confident that Hitler would find his ideas acceptable. The two met on 6 February and Hitler grudgingly gave his permission for a withdrawal to the line of the River Mius. Now Manstein could go ahead and assemble his forces in the western Donbass for a counteroffensive. German divisions, including SS Panzer Corps, which comprised the three SS Panzergrenadier Divisions, Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich and Totenkopf, had been moving to the Eastern Front from the west since early January. SS Panzer Corps had then been used to cover the retreat of Axis forces east of the River Donets before retiring in turn to take up positions in preparation for Manstein’s counterblow.
In such a fluid situation the Germans formed short-lived battle groups from whatever forces were available to stem the Soviet advance. For their part the Red Army commanders viewed the Axis movements as the prelude to a wholesale withdrawal from the eastern Ukraine. Nothing suggested that Manstein was methodically regrouping his armoured forces. By the middle of February Kharkov was in imminent danger of falling to the Russians. Hitler issued yet another stand-fast older, directing SS Panzer Corps not to retire from the city. SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Paul Hausser, SS Panzer Corps’ commander, decided that he must disobey his Führer and withdraw in order to save his men and their equipment. Kharkov was taken by the Russians on 15 February and SS Panzer Corps regrouped at Krasnograd.
With Hitler’s agreement, Manstein proceeded with further regrouping and preparations for the counteroffensive, which was to consist of three clearly defined phases:
1. SS Panzer Corps was to regroup near Krasnograd, XL and LVII Panzer Corps near Krasnomeyskoye, and XLVIII Panzer Corps near Zaporozhye, from where they would converge against the right flank of South-Western Front and hurl it back over the northern River Donets.
2. They would then regroup south-west of Kharkov, and strike at Voronezh Front, pushing it back across the northern Donets before recapturing Kharkov and Belgorod.
3. The offensive would continue towards Kursk, and Second Panzer Army, from Army Group Centre, would collaborate by striking southwards from the Orel area to meet Manstein’s troops coming up from the south.
The counteroffensive was to be under the control of the staff of the Fourth Panzer Army. The forces assembled included seven panzer divisions, the 5th SS Wiking Motorized Infantry Division, whose personnel were mainly Scandinavian and western European volunteers, and four army infantry divisions.
Manstein launched SS Panzer Corps at Kharkov on 6 March. The Soviet leadership was slow to realize the seriousness of their situation. Initially two of Rokossovsky’s armies (Sixty-Second and Sixty-Fourth) were sent to reinforce the Voronezh and South-Western Fronts in the Kharkov region and along the Donets respectively.
New orders were issued to Rokossovsky to reduce the depth of the planned encirclement around Briansk. The Soviet attack began on 7 March, coinciding with the German Second Army’s attack on the River Desna. On 17 March the Fourth Panzer Army and Second Army advanced on Belgorod, Kharkov having been taken by the SS on 15 March. By the end of March, the Voronezh Front was back on the eastern bank of the Donets.
Manstein’s master stroke
On 14 Match Stalin, concerned by the deteriorating situation in the south, summoned Deputy Supreme Commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, to Moscow. Zhukov was despatched to the HQ of Voronezh Front to assess the situation. In his report to Stalin, Zhukov was blunt.
“We must move everything we can from the STAVKA [Soviet equivalent of combined chiefs of staff] Reserve and the reserves of the neighbouring Fronts at once, because if we do not the Germans will capture Belgorod and develop their offensive towards Kursk.”
Within hours the Twenty-First and Sixty- Fourth Armies were moving towards Belgorod, but they were too late to prevent its capture. Belgorod fell on 18 March, confirming Zhukov’s predictions. The Twenty-First and Sixty-Fourth Armies established strong defensive positions to the east of the city. The speed of the Soviet redeployment had frustrated one of Manstein’s objectives: the move on Kursk.
However, Manstein had the bit between his teeth and did not care to surrender the initiative in the Kharkov-Kursk-Orel region. Although his men and machines were reaching the end of their capacities Manstein attempted to persuade Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, commander of Army Group Centre, to cooperate in an attack on Rokossovsky’s forces in the newly formed Kursk salient. Kluge, insisting that his men were in no fit condition to do more, refused. Indeed Army Group Centre had been involved in its own operation, the withdrawal from the Rzhev salient in front of Moscow, which shortened the line by some 300km (200 miles). This area had been the focus of Zhukov’s attention for several months and he had planned an operation, codenamed Mars, which was designed to emulate the success of Operation Uranus (the encirclement of Stalingrad). Operation Mars began on 25 November 1942. However, Army Group Centre was in far better shape than Army Group South and Mars was a failure that cost the Red Army some 300,000 men and 1400 tanks. On the Soviet side of the line, Rokossovsky’s opportunity to advance on Orel passed as troops were diverted south and STAVKA cancelled all further offensives other than those of a purely local nature.
With the onset of the April thaw, both sides settled down to consider their next move. The Axis forces were back in almost the positions they had held before Operation Blau, but the Red Army had proven itself capable of inflicting a large-scale, unprecedented defeat on the once-invincible Wehrmacht. The ingredients were mixing that would give rise to what promised to be an interesting summer in Russia. As the troops of both sides drew breath, their commanders began to plan. Both STAVKA and OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres, the headquarters responsible for the Eastern Front) were aware that the summer campaign of 1943 would be decisive. The Germans had particular need to worry. It was essential that Germany kept a firm grip of the initiative on the Eastern Front to retain Nazi influence over the neutrals of Europe.
The defeat at Stalingrad had lost Germany the tungsten of Portugal and the chrome of Turkey, both vital elements in munitions production and thus a highly significant factor in Hitler’s strategic thinking (which placed the possession of such raw materials at the top of his military agenda). Furthermore Sweden, a major supplier of iron ore which had until this point pursued a policy of “benevolent neutrality”, now adopted a less compliant stance. Indeed, such was Hitler’s concern in respect of Swedish raw materials that reinforcements were sent to Norway in case the situation should require the occupation of Sweden. Hitler had hoped that Turkey would invade the Soviet Union through the Caucasus. In the aftermath of Stalingrad, Germany’s recovery notwithstanding, it became clear that this would not happen. The support of Germany’s partners on the Eastern Front was also becoming less than wholehearted. Both Italian confidence in Germany’s ability to win the war and Mussolini’s faith in Hitler had been seriously eroded. Finland, regarding itself as Germany’s ally more by chance than choice, was in need of peace and now made no secret of that fact. Romania, having sustained heavy casualties as a result of the Soviet breakthroughs around Stalingrad, requested that its remaining troops in Russia be withdrawn from the frontline. The Hungarian forces became less amenable to following German orders and their role was restricted to security duties in the rear.
Finally, Japan was now highly unlikely to violate the non-aggression pact with Stalin and move into the Soviet Far Eastern provinces and Siberia.
