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January 1944
In January 1944, the German forces of Field Marshal Erich von Mansteins Army Group South including General Otto Whler's 8th Army had fallen back to the Panther-Wotan Line, a defensive position along the Dnieper river in Ukraine. Two corps, the XI under Gen. Wilhelm Stemmermann, the XLII Army Corps under Lt.Gen. Theobald Lieb and the attached Corps Detachment B from the 8th Army were holding a salient into the Soviet lines extending some 100 kilometers to the Dnieper river settlement of Kanev, with the town of Korsun roughly in the center of the salient, west of Cherkassy. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov realized the potential for destroying Whlers 8th Army with the Stalingrad model as precedent and using similar tactics as were applied to defeat Paulus encircled 6th Army. Zhukov recommended to the Soviet Supreme Command (Stavka) to deploy 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts to form two armored rings of encirclement: an inner ring around a cauldron and then destroy the forces it contained, and an external ring to prevent relief formations from reaching the trapped units. Despite repeated warnings from Manstein and others, Hitler refused to allow the exposed units to be pulled back to safety. General Konev held a conference at his headquarters at Boltushki on 15 January with his commanders and their political commissars to pass on the orders received from Stavka.[3] The initial attack was to be conducted by Konevs own 2nd Ukrainian Front from the southeast by 53rd Army and 4th Guards Army, with 5th Guards Tank Army to exploit penetrations supported by 5th Air Army, to be joined in progress by 52nd Army, 5th Guards Cavalry Corps and 2nd Tank Army. Additionally, from Vatutins First Ukrainian Front, 27th and 40th Armies were to be deployed from the northwest, with 6th Tank Army to exploit penetrations supported by 2nd Air Army.[4] Many of these formations had received an inflow of new personnel. Red Army planning further included extensive deception operations that the Soviets claimed were successful, however, the German 8th Army war diary shows clearly that the German staffs were more concerned with the real threat than the simulated one.[5]
Encirclement
On 18 January, Manstein was proven prescient when General Nikolai Vatutins 1st and General Konevs 2nd Ukrainian Fronts attacked the edges of the salient and surrounded the two German corps. The link-up on 28 January of 20th Guards Tank Brigade with 6th Guards Tank Army of the First Ukrainian Front at the village of Zvenyhorodka completed the encirclement and created the cauldron or Kessel that became known as the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket. Stalin expected and was promised a second Stalingrad; Konev wired: "There is no need to worry, Comrade Stalin. The encircled enemy will not escape."[6]
Trapped in the pocket were under 60,000 men, a total of six German divisions at approximately 55% of their authorized strength, along with a number of smaller combat units. Among the trapped German forces were the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, with the attached SS Sturmbrigade Wallonien (SS Assault Brigade Wallonien), the Estonian SS Battalion Narwa, and "several thousand" Russian auxiliaries.[7] The trapped forces were designated Gruppe Stemmermann and the commander of XI Corps, General Wilhelm Soviet advances that created the Korsun-Cherkassy pocket. Stemmermann was placed in command. Wiking had 30 operational Panzer III/IV tanks and assault guns and 6 [8] in repair. The division further had 47 artillery pieces, including 12 self-propelled guns.[9]
Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket they were previously."[14] The Red Air Force then started to supply some units by air using Po-2 aircraft.[15]
On 11 February Major Robert Kstners 105th Grenadier Regiment of more units are crammed into the ever-shrinking perimeter. At least the snow concealed the the 72nd Infantry Division captured Novo-Buda in a night assault.[26] Germans from the omnipresent Red Air The following night Komarovka fell in similar fashion.[27] On the [21] Force. evening of 15 February the 105th Regiment again, using its last reserves and with two assault guns, secured Khilki, defeating a Soviet counterattack supported by armor.[28] However, of all the German divisions in the pocket, Wiking "did more than any other to ensure the continued survival of Gruppe Stemmermann ..."[29] Since Wiking was the only truly mobile force inside the pocket, the divisions tracked units were repeatedly shifted from one end of the cauldron to the other to shore up crumbling lines. The pocket had "wandered" south and half-way toward its rescuers and rested on the village of Shanderovka. The settlement was heavily defended by the Soviets; had been captured by 72nd Infantry troops, was retaken by units of the Soviet 27th Army and recaptured by the Germania regiment of Wiking. By nightfall on 16 February, III Panzer Corps fought its way closer to the encircled formations, the spearheads were now seven kilometers from Group
Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket At the left flank column, a reconnaissance patrol returned bearing grim news. The geographic feature Hill 239 was occupied by Soviet T-34's of the 5th Guards Tank Army. Despite energetic efforts to capture Hill 239 now from the inside of the cauldron, the high ground remained in Soviet hands and had to be bypassed. "As more and more units ran up against the impregnable tank barrier atop the ridge dominated by Hill 239,"[45] the German escape direction veered off to the south toward the Gniloy Tikich River, thus ending for the bulk of troops at the wrong position of the stream with disastrous consequences to come. When daylight arrived, the German escape plan began to unravel. Very few armored vehicles and other heavy equipment could climb the slippery, thawing hillsides and the weapons had to be destroyed and abandoned "after the last round of ammunition had been fired."[44] General Konev, now realizing that the Germans were escaping, was enraged and then resolved to keep his promise to Stalin not to let any Hitlerites or Fascists escape annihilation. Soviet intelligence, however, at this stage vastly overestimated the armored strength of III Panzer Corps, and Konev therefore proceeded in force. At this time the 20th Tank Corps brought its brigade of the new Joseph Stalin-2s to the Korsun battlefield.[46] Konev ordered all available armor and artillery to attack the escaping units, cut them into isolated groups and then destroy them piecemeal.[47] The two blocking Soviet infantry divisions, 206th Rifle and 5th Guards Airborne, had been smashed by the German assault forces; without infantry support Soviet tanks then fired into the escaping formations from a distance. Sensing that no anti-tank weapons were in the field, T-34s commenced to wade into unprotected support troops, headquarters units, stragglers and red-cross identified medical columns with their wounded charges.[48] [49] By mid-day, the majority of the now intermingled divisions had reached the Gniloy Tikich stream, turbulent and swollen by the melting snow. Despite the fact that the 1st Panzer Division had captured a bridge, and engineers had erected another, the panicking men saw the river as their only escape from the rampaging T-34s. Since the main body was away and south of the bridgeheads, the last tanks, trucks and wagons were driven into the icy water, trees were felled to form make-shift bridges and the troops floundered across as best as they could, with hundreds of exhausted men drowning, being swept downstream with horses and military debris. Many others succumbed to shock or hypothermia. Groups of men were brought across on lifelines fashioned from belts and harnesses. Others formed rafts of planks and other debris to tow the wounded to the German side, at all times under Soviet artillery and T-34 fire. Gen. Lieb, after establishing a semblance of order at the banks throughout the afternoon, crossed the Gniloy Tikich swimming alongside his horse.[50] When Wiking commander Herbert Otto Gille attempted to form a human chain across the river, alternating between those who could swim and those who could not, scores of men died when someones hand slipped and the chain broke. Several hundred Soviet prisoners of war, a troupe of Russian women auxiliaries and Ukrainian civilians who feared reprisals by the Red Army, also crossed the icy waters.[51] Toward the end phase of the breakout, engineers had built several more bridges and rear guard units of 57th and 88th Infantry Divisions crossed the river "dry," including "20 [horse drawn] panje wagons with ... about 600 wounded" aboard.[52] That so many reached the German lines at Lysyanka was due in great measure to the exertions of III Panzer Corps as it drove in relief of Group Stemmermann. The cutting edge was provided by Heavy Armored Regiment Bke (Schweres Panzer Regiment Bke), named for its commander Lt.Col. Dr. Franz Bke (a dentist in civilian life). The unit was equipped with Tigers and Panthers and an engineer battalion with specialist bridging skills.[53]
The Outcome
The Red Army encirclement of Cherkassy-Korsun inflicted serious damage on six German divisions, including Wiking; these units were nearly decimated and had to be withdrawn, requiring complete re-equipping after this military disaster. Most escaped troops were eventually shipped from collection points near Uman to rehabilitation areas and hospitals in Poland, or were sent on leave to their home towns. The Soviet forces continued their steamroller drive westward with massive tank armies of T-34s, IS-2s and trucks and Shermans supplied by their American allies under the Lend-Lease program.[54]
Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket Controversy exists to this day over casualties and losses. Soviet historian Vladimir Telpukhovsky claims that the Red Army killed 52,000 Germans and took 11,000 prisoners, other Soviet sources claim 57,000 killed and 18,000 prisoners - with Soviet casualty numbers officially unpublished. The high numbers given are attributed by sources to the erroneous Soviet belief that all German units were at their full establishment and that most of the German 8th Army was trapped.[55] German accounts state that the under 60,000 men originally inside the cauldron had shrunk in heavy fighting to less than 50,000 by 16 February, that 45,000 took part in the breakout and "that 27,703 German soldiers and 1,063 Russian auxiliaries had broken out unscathed. In addition 7,496 wounded" got through to III Panzer Corps plus the 4,161 wounded previously evacuated from the cauldron by air, leaving behind a total of 19,000 dead, wounded, captured or missing.[56] Douglas E. Nashs Appendix 7 German Present for Battle Unit Strengths after the Breakout in Hells Gate lists per unit survivors, with total escapees of 40,423, including the wounded flown out of the pocket and evacuated from Lysyanka.[57] By 19 February III Panzer Corps began to pull back from the Lysyanka salient; it was assumed that no more soldiers from Gruppe Stemmermann would be rescued.[58] General Stemmermann died fighting among his rear guard. Gen. Lieb survived the war and died in 1981. The commander of 2nd Ukrainian Front, Gen. Konev, was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union for his great victory. Gen. Vatutin was shot by Ukrainian Nationalist UPA insurgents on 28 February 1944 and died on 15 April 1944.
Assessment
In the context of World War II, the battle at Korsun was a minor one, but with an unusually high degree of drama. The Soviet commanders took advantage of their considerable numerical superiority on the Eastern Front and decided to attack an exposed German position, which Hitler stubbornly decided to hold.[59] Yet German field commanders inside and outside the cauldron grasped when a now or never order had to be given.[60] The German disaster, "a major defeat,"[61] and escape is documented. On the Soviet side the attacks to eliminate the pocket did not work out as intended, did not proceed as planned, the Wehrmacht relief attempts could not be repelled as designed and the forces inside the cauldron were not annihilated as promised to Stalin or asserted in propaganda messages to the western Allies or penned in memoirs and staff studies. "There was no Stalingrad on the Dnieper, as the Soviets claimed ..."[61] Nevertheless, the Soviet position, relative to the Germans, was stronger after the battle than before, so Korsun may be viewed as a Soviet victory, even though it was bought at a considerably higher price than it ought to have been.[62]
References
[1] Nash, Hells Gate, p. 366 [2] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 280 [3] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 37 [4] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 37-39 [5] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 39 [6] Konev, Battles Hitler Lost, quoted in Nash, p. 200 [7] Nash, p. 27 [8] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 335 [9] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 336; a total of 253 artillery pieces were inside the pocket [p. 53] [10] Image description abbreviated from nearly same image in Nash, p. 161 [11] Perrett, Knights of the Black Cross, p. 167 [12] Nash, p. 162 [13] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 180 [14] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 184 [15] Zetterling & Frankson, p. 185 [16] Group Stemmermann essentially consisted of six divisions: 57th, 72nd, 88th, 389th divisions, Corps Detachment B [Division Group 112], all infantry formations with no armored components; and Panzer Division Wiking with the attached Wallonien and Narwa. The only units considered still capable of aggressive, offensive operations were 72nd Infantry Division and Wiking. (Department of the Army Pamphlet 20-234, p. 19-20)
Bibliography
Armstrong, Richard N. Red Army Tank Commanders. The Armored Guards. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1994. ISBN 0-88740-581-9 Carell, Paul. Scorched Earth. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971. ISBN 0-345-02213-0 Department of the Army Pamphlet 20-234. Operations of Encircled Forces: German Experiences in Russia. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952. Glantz, David & House, Jonathan M. When Titans Clashed. How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. ISBN 0-7006-0717-X Nash, Douglas E. Hell's Gate: The Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket, January-February 1944 (http://search. barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?r=1&ean=0965758435). Southbury, Connecticut: RZM Publishing, 2002. ISBN 0-9657584-3-5 Perrett, Bryan. Knights of the Black Cross, Hitler's Panzerwaffe and its Leaders. New York: St. Martins Press, 1986. ISBN 0-7090-2806-7 Shukman, Harold, ed. Stalin's Generals. New York: Grove Press, 1993. ISBN 1-84212-513-3 Zetterling, Niklas & Frankson, Anders. The Korsun Pocket. The Encirclement and Breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944. Drexel Hill (Philadelphia), Pennsylvania: Casemate Publishers. 2008. ISBN 978-1-932033-88-5
Gallery
Dispatch rider from a heavy tank battalion ... as a Tiger I passes by, February 1944 (description abbreviated from same image in Nash, p. 238)
Gunners from Art.Rgt. 188, 88th Inf. Div. (description abbreviated from same image in Nash, p. 145)
Panzer IV's of the relief force laden with accompanying infantry move out (description abbreviated from near identical image in Nash, p. 159)
License
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