Seen in retrospect, the German campaign in Russia in 1941 was the greatest display of maneuver warfare in history, and it will likely remain so in the future. In point of preparedness, doctrine, numbers available for the offensive, and leadership, the German armed forces had peaked during the summer. These qualities enabled them to storm forward, advancing over 600 miles in less than six months while fighting against an opponent who was numerically at least equal, and to conquer territory about twice as large as Germany itself. The key to this unparalleled achievement was operativ warfare, now waged with the aid of armored and mechanized units and honed into the blitzkrieg. Its essence consisted of never taking on the enemy in a frontal attack if it could be helped; instead, massive forces were concentrated on very narrow fronts in order to achieve a breakthrough, after which they would move forward to drive deep wedges into the enemy, pulverize (zerstuekeln), outflank, encircle, and annihilate him in a Kesselschlacht with inverted fronts whenever possible. Coordinated mobility, even more than firepower, formed the key to this method of warfare, and indeed the entire German system of organization and C3 were specifically designed to assist large separated forces in coordinating their movements against a single enemy. As a glance at the map shows, the campaign consisted of first breaking up the enemy front into separate sectors and then building a series of huge cauldrons, each of which contained several hundred thousand Red Army troops. In point of sheer operational brilliance, it has no parallel.

 

This above does not mean that the German conduct of the war, even if narrowed down to the 1941 campaign alone and even if regarded from a purely operativ standpoint, was perfect. Having underestimated both the power of their opponents and the difficulties posed by distance, terrain, and climate, the Germans did not have sufficient troops for the campaign and logistically their preparations for it were rather sketchy.  Once the invasion got under way, the funnel shape of the theater of war meant that the number of objectives was forever increasing. This should have acted as a spur to the German High Command (Hitler in particular) to decide priorities and to create Schwerpunkte. Instead, they often chose to scatter their forces and "send them off along a growing number of diverging axes in order to, from left to right (or north to south), link up with the Finns, capture Leningrad," keep in touch with Army Group Center, capture Moscow, keep in touch with Army Group South, overrun the Ukraine, and invade the Crimea . Whether the Germans could have won the war by imitating Napoleon and marching straight for Moscow is doubtful, given that the fall of the city would not necessarily have caused the Soviet Union to break up. Also, it is not clear whether such a thrust could have been logistically supported using the road system in Belorussia. As it was, this strategy was never put to the test.

 

The contribution that the Luftwaffe made to the campaign was enormous. It was able to secure air superiority and protect friendly forces against attack, although its ability to carry out the latter mission diminished as time passed. Next, its forces used every means at its disposal to help the army move forward. Luftwaffe units reconnoitered the enemy ahead of the army and often helped the latter's commanders decide on the best direction in which to mount their operativ thrusts. They flew supplies to army units that could not be reached in any other way. They protected the long, exposed flanks that naturally resulted from the blitzkrieg style of war, forming Schwerpunkte wherever and whenever the enemy showed signs of preparing a counterattack. They helped prevent the withdrawal of trapped Soviet forces and launched punishing attacks on those that had been cut off inside the pockets created by the army's operativ thrusts. Whenever a river was to be crossed or an important city to be captured, the Luftwaffe was certain to be found flying close-support missions even to the point where it literally dropped its bombs at the German infantryman's feet.

 

Though the achievements of the Luftwaffe were thus considerable, it became increasingly clear that the available forces were not really sufficient to master the enormous spaces involved. This was particularly true in view of the equally enormous difficulties involved in having to operate from bases that were primitive, far from home, and often connected to each other, the rear, and the ground forces only by the most tenuous of communications. The farther east the Germans went, the more difficult it became to keep the Luftwaffe units supplied and their aircraft operational. The more intensive the fighting, the greater the army's tendency to call in the air force wherever an advance was to be made or whenever a local crisis took place. This combination of circumstances had the effect of gradually bringing operativ warfare to an end. The Luftwaffe was forced more and more to act as flying artillery, a role for which the majority of its aircraft were not well suited and in which they took correspondingly heavy losses.

 

In Russia, as in Poland and France, the Luftwaffe was originally forbidden from attacking strategic targets, it being assumed that such attacks would be a waste of effort and that the campaign hopefully would be over before the effects of such attacks could be felt. However, just as the army tended to divide its efforts between many objectives, so the Luftwaffe had to go beyond this strict line of reasoning. Beginning in the second half of July, some of its forces were diverted from interdiction in order to attack industrial targets in Moscow, Rharkov, Rostov, Orel, Tula, Voronezh, Bryansk, and a number of other places. In the absence of a heavy four-engined bomber fleet (which, given their overall economic situation, the Germans probably could not have created even if the necessary prototypes had been available), strategic warfare had to be carried out by two-engined medium and light bombers. However, even these were only capable of hitting individual targets more or less by accident.

 

It is therefore not surprising that such warfare remained without any noticeable effect, of nuisance value at best and a waste of resources at worst. The only thing that can be said in its favor is that it probably did not seriously impact on whatever chances the Germans stood to gain a victory, given that during the would-be decisive advance on Moscow the effort that went to operations other than mittelbare (indirect) and unmittelbare Unterstuetzung (direct support) was not very great.

 

All in all, the strengths and weaknesses of the Luftwaffe in this period reflected those of the German armed forces as a whole. Unequalled determination and sheer Schwung (elan) was based on the unlimited Einsatzbereitschaft (initiative) of air crews and ground personnel. The Germans were unmatched in their grasp of operativ warfare, but only at the expense of weaknesses in logistics (sustainability in particular) and a somewhat uncertain overall strategy that caused them to go after too many different objectives at once. There is still much to learn from the Luftwaffe's methods of waging war. There is also much to avoid.

Up to this point, the Luftwaffe's task in the east had consisted almost exclusively of operativ warfare in indirect or increasingly direct support of the army. Indeed, Hitler's Directive No. 21 had explicitly ordered attacks on Soviet "strategic" targets such as arms manufacturers to be postponed until after the Archangelsk-Volga-Astrakhan line would be reached. However, the need to consolidate the Smolensk pocket, as well as the inability of the German High Command to make up its mind concerning the next objective, created some breathing space. Working day and night, the Luftwaffe brought its ground organization forward, a task that was already being made difficult by the operations of scattered Red Army units as well as the first partisan forces . It was only about 250 miles from the Dnieper to Moscow, making it possible to mount a series of raids against the Soviet capital. The first and largest attack was launched on the night of 21-22 July and was carried out by 195 bombers; of these, 127 reached their targets and dropped 104 tons of high explosives as well as 46,000 small incendiary bombs. From then until 5 December-the day the final German attack on Moscow opened-75 more raids were mounted, all by night and the great majority by forces numbering fewer than 50 aircraft each. The 1,000 Soviet antiaircraft guns concentrated in the city, as well as opposition from Red Air Force fighters, forced the Luftwaffe to operate mainly by night. Even if their bombers had been capable of accurately hitting their targets, which they were not, this was not nearly enough to make an impression. The Soviets later put the total number of dead at 1,088, comparable to the figure killed at Rotterdam in the previous year but a small fraction of those destroyed by the vast Allied raids on German cities later in the war.

 

As for maneuver warfare, the raids on Moscow undoubtedly constituted a wasteful diversion of effort away from the main task, which was and remained the destruction of the Soviet armed forces. However, it should be remembered that, owing partly to logistic reasons and partly to the need to clear up the still-seething Smolensk pocket, ground operations on the central front were almost at a standstill at this time. While Luftflotte 2's attack aircraft took part in preventing the Soviets from breaking out of the pocket, its bombers were not very suitable for this task. They were therefore used on other missions even if the value of those missions proved disappointing in the end. When large-scale operativ warfare was resumed late in August, the raids on Moscow continued but were greatly reduced until they only represented a small fraction of the German effort. To the Soviets, they were never more than a nuisance, but they probably did tie down greater forces committed to defending the city than were ever committed to attacking it.

 

By the end of August, after almost a month of stationary fighting, Army Group Center had its supply situation improved to the extent that the railway supporting its southern flank now reached the city of Gomel.  This enabled Guderian's Panzer Group 2, supported by the newly created Second Army, to start its drive southward into the Ukraine, where it acted in conjunction with Gen Ewald von Kleist's Panzer Group 1 coming up from Kiev. The Germans thought they were operating against only the Soviet Fifth Army; however, the entire enemy force consisted of parts of several other armies as well, so that the operation took longer and yielded far more prisoners and booty than originally expected. As usual, the missions of Fliegerkorps II and Fliegerkorps V, supporting the two panzer groups, were to gain and maintain air superiority, isolate the pocket against counterattacks from the outside, and attack the encircled Soviet forces until they laid down their arms.

 

Beginning on 28 August, Fliegerkorps II supported Guderian's crossing of the river Desna by blasting away at the Soviet artillery positions on the other side.  It next flew missions against the Soviet railways on Guderian's exposed left flank while using its dive bombers to blast a way for the panzers on their way south, helping them to advance rapidly and preventing the bulk of the Soviet forces from withdrawing.  Simultaneously, Fliegerkorps V launched attacks on roads and railroads in the Romodan-Poltava area, prevented a counterattack by Soviet forces coming from the Lubny-Lokhvitsa-Priluki-Yagotin area, helped the army capture Kiev ("to be reduced to rubble and ashes," according to Hitler's order), and in general bombed the encircled Soviet forces, making them ready for surrender. The war diary of this corps for the period is one of the few documents to survive the war, making a quantitative analysis of these operations possible.  It shows that the forces of Fliegerkorps V flew 1,422 sorties between 12 and 21 September alone, losing 17 aircraft destroyed, 14 damaged, nine soldiers dead, 18 missing, and five wounded. In return, they dropped 577 tons of bombs and 96 cases of incendiaries (presumably over Kiev) and destroyed 65 enemy aircraft in the air and 42 on the ground. They also destroyed 23 tanks; 2,171 motor vehicles; six antiaircraft batteries; 52 trains; 28 locomotives (this apart from 335 motor vehicles and 36 trains damaged) ; demolished one bridge ; and interrupted 18 railway lines. To the extent that these figures mean anything at all, it seems that the Schwerpunkt during this, as during all German mobile operations, was on interdiction; this is indicated by the small number of tanks destroyed as well as the absence from the list of major weapons such as ground artillery.

 

Meanwhile, along the Dnieper on both sides of Smolensk, the rebuilding of the railways and their conversion to standard gauge was proceeding apace. Fliegerkorps VIII, its mission in the north only half accomplished, was brought back under the command of Luftflotte 2. Panzer Group 3 was taken from Army Group North and returned to its original position on the left of Army Group Center, where it was subordinated to the Ninth Army; these were thus the same forces that had formed the northern arm in the battles of Minsk and Smolensk. To compensate for the loss of Guderian, Hitler ordered Gen Erich Hoepner's Panzer Group 4 to be used as well. In this way, it operated under the command of Fourth Army at Roslavl on the south flank of Army Group Center, where Guderian had previously been. Meanwhile, Guderian himself was to create a third prong by driving due north-northwest through Bryansk towards Tula. The German forces now totaled 70 divisions, including four armored and eight motorized; average actual strength was probably around 70 percent, up from 50 percent five weeks earlier. Opposing them were 83 Soviet divisions of the western theater, commanded by Gen Georgi Zhukov. Its principal parts, from north to south, were the West Front, the Reserve Front and, facing Guderian, the Bryansk Front.

 

Guderian's offensive opened on 30 September, and the remaining German armies following two days later. At first, the new offensive promised to become as successful as anything in the past; on 10 October, forward units of Panzer Group 3 and Panzer Group 4 met at Vyazma, trapping some 300,000 Soviet troops. Meanwhile, Panzer Group 2 (now redesignated Second Panzer Army), operating in conjunction with Second Army on its left, came up from the south and succeeded in working its way behind Gen A. I. Eremenko's Bryansk Front. At this time, the weather broke and the autumn rains began. The entire countryside turned into a vast sea of mud that prevented wheeled vehicles from moving at all and caused tracked ones to move forward only slowly and at an enormous cost in fuel.

 

As the offensive began, the Luftwaffe's raids on Moscow were reduced in scale until they became of nuisance value only. Luftflotte 2 went back to its usual role of interdiction behind the front; on 4 and 5 October, it was able to achieve very good results against Soviet rail transport, including the destruction of no fewer than 10 trains loaded with tanks. However, when the weather broke, it too found itself reduced to flying isolated sorties against such targets as could still be identified. There were even days when the entire air fleet, its ground organization suffering grievously under the impossible conditions, was only able to get one or two reconnaissance aircraft into the air. Red Air Force resistance, favored by prepared airfields and short lines of communications, was stiffening and had to be held down. Under such circumstances, Fliegerkorps II was only able to achieve isolated successes, such as preventing a bridge over the river Snopot from being blown up until German armored units could arrive on the scene. Farther to the south, it was all it could do to keep the supply routes of Second Panzer Army open against the usual remnants of Soviet forces that, though outflanked on the map and supposedly defeated, had not been destroyed. In doing so, it suffered many losses due to the bad weather.

 

The tremendous German success in the autumn battles had left Hitler and the OKH in an optimistic mood. The double encirclement at Vyazma and Bryansk had yielded as many as 350,000 prisoners, though even this huge figure did not account for many Soviet forces that had made good their escape on the southern part of the front. The continuation of the offensive had originally been ordered for 17 November. However, a few days after this date, the weather brought snow and fog with temperatures sinking to below zero centigrade. Fliegerkorps II was taken out of the line and sent to the Mediterranean, where the British had driven Rommel back from Tobruk and were threatening Tripolitania. With them went the commander of Luftflotte 2, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, who was destined to spend the rest of his career commanding the German forces in the Mediterranean theater. All that was left in front of Moscow was Fliegerkorps VIII, whose commander, Gen Wolfram von Richthofen, took over from Kesselring on 30 November. By this time, the airfields used by the Germans were scarcely serviceable, and the few units that were still able to advance at all were being overwhelmed by the cold. On 8 December, faced by a massive Soviet counterattack that threatened the flanks of Army Group Center on both sides of Moscow, Hitler reluctantly ordered the offensive to be abandoned.

Even as these operations were going on, the most important part of the drama was taking place neither in the Baltic nor in the Ukraine but with Army Group Center north of the Pripet Marshes in Belorussia. The armored forces, forming the spearheads of the army group, were put on its wings: 3d Panzer Group (Gen Hermann Hoth) on the left and 2d Panzer Group (Gen Heinz Guderian) on the right. Setting out from Suwalki and Brest Litovsk, respectively-the distance separating them was about 200 miles-these spearheads were to converge on Minsk, some 250 miles inside Soviet territory, in order to form a gigantic pocket. Between the two armored spearheads marched the infantry armies-Ninth Army to the north and Fourth Army to the south. This well-thought-out plan, which gave the German forces shorter distances to cover and enabled them to participate in the campaign by sealing off the pocket formed by the armored spearheads, was designed to allow them to form a second and smaller pocket inside the larger one by meeting at a point on the Bialystok-Minsk road some 100 miles to the east of their starting positions. As usual in maneuver warfare, everything depended on speed and boldness in finding the weak spot and then, having burst through it, striking deep into the enemy's rear. As usual, this could only be achieved by presenting to the enemy long, open flanks that the Luftwaffe had the task of holding and protecting.

 

The starting positions of Guderian's tanks were on the river Bug. As usual, when there was a river to be crossed, the effect was to divert the Luftwaffe units on the spot (Fliegerkorps II) from deep strikes to close support, especially since the crossing sites could be dominated by the guns in the ancient fortress of Brest Litovsk. Fliegerkorps II was accordingly directed to this task even before it could achieve full air superiority; its "rolling attacks" (rollende Einsatz), a kind of operation already familiar from the Battle of the Meuse in 1940, afforded Guderian's rear echelons a safe passage until the fortress finally surrendered. Next, on 23 June units of Luftflotte 2 were instrumental in beating back a furious Soviet counteroffensive at Grodno. It was only after these operations were over that the weight of the attack could be shifted farther to the east. It now fell on the railroads leading into the area of the prospective pocket (interdiction) and also on the roads leading out of them through the Belorussian forest.

 

Even at this early point in the campaign, growing distances were already creating a situation where the long-range reconnaissance and bomber units could not be brought up fast enough for the latter to attack targets identified by the former. With the results of photoreconnaissance often many hours out of date, it became necessary to resort to armed reconnaissance by having the bombers act in both roles at once and attack targets of opportunity, a method that proved wasteful in terms of the time that the units could spend on mission. Acting in this way, Fliegerkorps II was able to obstruct but not entirely prevent the attempts by forces of the Soviet West Front (Gen D. G. Pavlov) to retreat and break out of the pocket; also, since it could not be everywhere at once, it was unable to intervene against the sorties flown by the Red Air Force against the German cavalry division forming the extreme right flank of Army Group Center. Further north, Fliegerkorps VIII was instrumental in beating off a Soviet counterattack launched against Hoth's flank on 24-25 June in the Kuznica-Odel'sk- Grodno-Dembrovo area. Since roads in this area were few and far between, it also airlifted supplies to the rapidly advanced 3d Panzer Group. By means of all these operations, the Luftwaffe contributed substantially to the closing of the pocket at Minsk, the first great German victory in this new campaign.

 

The Battle of Minsk was concluded on 3 July, when the Soviet forces inside the pocket formally surrendered, although it was another five days before resistance came to an end and 290,000 Russian prisoners had fallen into German hands. Meanwhile, the arrival of the infantry had enabled the armor to be disengaged and resupplied. On 9 July, Guderian and Hoth were off again. This time the goal was to close the jaws at Smolensk, 400 miles from the starting positions, thus building another one of those gigantic pockets that were the specialty of the blitzkrieg. The Luftwaffe's principal task was to prevent the Red Air Force from disrupting German preparations for the crossing of the Dnieper, which it did most effectively but not without causing some friendly casualties. On 23 July the pincers met and trapped a mass of Russians. As one might expect from the vast distances, however, the pincers were at first rather thin. The German infantry divisions, though marching hard, had been left far behind by the panzers. Consequently, it again fell to Luftflotte 2 to do its best to hold the pocket until they could arrive. It did so with only partial success; unlike the French in the previous year, the Russians for the most part did not surrender simply because the map showed that their units had been cut off. Using the wooded terrain to hide during the day, many of them were able to break out at night. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring of Luftflotte 2 later estimated that 100,000 Soviet troops had made good their escape in this way, albeit at the cost of leaving their heavy equipment behind and watching their large units disintegrate.

 

Although it was not until 5 August that the pocket west of Smolensk could be regarded as properly closed-and even then gaps remained Fliegerkorps VIII had already been taken away from Luftlotte 2. By Hitler's orders, it joined Fliegerkorps I in its attack towards Leningrad. The remaining formation, Fliegerkorps II, now found its forces strung out thinly across the hundreds of miles forming the front of Army Group Center and attempting to protect its flanks. It had to assist in sealing off the pocket, but at the same time it had to beat off a series of determined Soviet counterattacks against the exposed Yelnya salient across the Dnieper (occupied by Guderian's troops). To add to its trouble, it was called upon to operate far in the south, using Stukas to strike at Soviet armored boats that appeared unexpectedly on the northern edges of the Pripet Marshes and inflicted stinging losses on the German cavalry division there. By this time, the Red Air Force had found its bearings to the extent that it was able to join in the army's attacks on the Yelnya salient. Unable to be everywhere at once, the fighters of Fliegerkorps II were often too late to interfere. Attempting to pursue the low-flying, heavily armored Soviet attack aircraft, they were fired at from the ground by every possible weapon. As a result, an order went out to the German ground troops to imitate the Soviets and defend themselves against air attack with machine guns. This was OKH's first admission that, in these enormous spaces, the army no longer had nor could hope to have all the friendly command of the air it desired.

 

As the German forces consolidated their hold at Smolensk on the Dnieper, Hitler and the Army High Command engaged in the famous debate as to which objective, Moscow or the Ukraine, should be given priority. On Hitler's orders, Hoth's 3d Panzer Group now followed Fliegerkorps VIII in turning to the assistance of Army Group North, though without much success since the country between Smolensk and Leningrad contains some of the largest and densest forests in the whole of Russia. We cannot debate here whether or not it was feasible, let alone desirable, to pursue the offensive against Moscow at this time. Suffice it to say that this author's research indicates that the logistic basis for this action was not available since the railways supplying the German infantry forces in particular (unlike the armored groups, they did not have their own motorized transport capable of bringing up supplies from the rear) had been left hundreds of miles behind. 

Meanwhile, far to the south, Army Group South advanced from Poland. Its left wing was formed by Sixth Army, acting as a flank guard against possible counterattacks coming from the Pripet Marshes; next, from north to south, came 1st Panzer Group, Seventeenth Army, and, emerging from Rumania on 2 July, Eleventh Army operating in conjunction with some Rumanian forces. As usual, the planners at OKH had staked their main hopes for operativ warfare on 1st Panzer Group, though not to the extent of freeing it from subordination to Sixth Army. (Throughout the summer of 1941, German panzer groups continued to be under the orders of infantry armies in order to prevent them from wandering off on their own.) The 1st Panzer Group was expected to break through the frontier defenses and advance very fast, its mission being to outflank the Soviet forces on its right until, by turning southward to the Black Sea, it could crush them in a Kesselschlacht against Eleventh Army coming from its Rumanian "balcony." This strategy in turn rendered the south flank of the panzer army open to attack. As always, there were wide gaps between the advancing German columns, and Fliegerkorps V had already been instrumental in beating back a corps-sized Soviet counterattack on 26 June in the area between Lutsk and Rovno.  

 

It soon became clear that the Soviet forces in this area, which formed the Southwestern Front under Gen M. P. Kirponos, were better commanded than elsewhere. In the sector of Seventeenth Army, they slowed down the German advance, did not allow themselves to be disrupted, and, fighting for as long as the situation permitted, made what were on the whole well-ordered retreats. Some of Gen M. I. Potapov's Fifth Army withdrew into the marshes to the north, where the Luftwaffe was unable to find them and from which they were to emerge later in the campaign. Others fell back on the Stalin line and, after that line was breached, tried to cross the Dnieper to safety. It was the task of Fliegerkorps V, attached to the left wing of the army group, to prevent the retreat. At first it did so with some success by attacking roads, railroads, and transportation centers in Lvov, Brody, Zlotuv, Zhitomir, Berdicev, Starokonstantinov, Belaya Tserkov, and Kazatin. Other than an occasional thunderstorm, the weather was good and the country completely open. Hence, these attacks, which went on day and night, were as successful as any that the Luftwaffe mounted in Russia throughout the campaign. A high point was reached on 30 June when two or three Soviet motorized columns, moving four abreast, were caught near Lvov and subjected to what amounted almost to a slaughter. However, Fliegerkorps V did not have dive-bombing units under its command. It was instrumental in keeping the air clear of Soviet aircraft, but its ability to offer direct support to First Panzer Army was limited. This was one factor that caused the advance of that unit to be considerably slower at first than had been planned.

 

Penetrating farther to the east, the Germans faced different problems. Whereas the nature of the terrain in the north had caused the advance to proceed along the forest tracks, the countryside in the Ukraine presented no limitations. Under such circumstances, it did not take long before Luftflotte 4, like Army Group South as a whole, found its forces threatened by lack of cohesion. The problem was made worse by the almost complete absence of roads. This caused the army and air force to compete for the few available roadways in order to bring supplies forward. At times it became necessary to supply the forward units of the Luftwaffe by air, always a very costly operation. As a result, the bombers were increasingly left behind, the fighters could not reach the front at all, and only the attack aircraft got proper logistic support. Although bridges on the Dnieper were repeatedly hit by sorties flown by Fliegerkorps V, traffic over them was never completely halted because they proved difficult to destroy. Attacks were also made on the railway network east of the river in the Konotop-Glukhov- Gorodishche-Priluki-Bakhmach region. Tactical results were very good, with some 1,000 railroad cars destroyed, but again the withdrawal of at least some Soviet forces in front of 1st Panzer Group could not be prevented.

 

Meanwhile, having reached the Dnieper on 10 July, 1st Panzer Group was forbidden by Hitler from crossing it. Thereupon the Germans turned their armored spearheads towards the southeast, keeping west of the river. This brought them into the rear of the Soviet armies that were slowly falling back in front of the German Seventeenth Army and led to the creation of the pocket at Uman. Here Fliegerkorps V was more successful than before in helping the ground forces seal off the pocket and prevent the escape of the Soviet forces, particularly since it was assisted by units of Fliegerkorps IV coming from Rumania in support of the German Eleventh Army. However, this meant that Sixth Army in the north had to be left completely unsupported. That army accordingly had to beat off the Soviet Fifth Army coming out of the Pripet Marshes and directing its attack against the exposed rear of 1st Panzer Group. It did so, but at the cost of slowing its own advance to a snail's pace and thereby laying-even though unintentionally-the foundations for the subsequent vast Kesselschlacht of Kiev.

 

When Army Group South had finished clearing the Uman pocket and was preparing to cross the Dnieper on 7 August, it found itself exposed to a sudden counterattack by the Soviet Twenty-sixth Army on the right flank of the German Sixth Army. This, had it succeeded, might have cut the army group in two or at least driven a deep wedge between the widely separated German forces. As usual, the only force immediately available to hold off the threat was the Luftwaffe; and, as was often the case during this period, it did so quickly and effectively, though at the cost of switching to battlefield operations for which many of its aircraft were not really suitable. A week was to pass before the German forces coming from the north and the south simultaneously (one of 1st Panzer Group's armored divisions had to turn around and retrace its previous movement) were able to halt the Soviets and throw them back across the river. During the first decisive days, Fliegerkorps V, throwing in every available unit and forced by unfavorable weather to fly at altitudes as low as 50-100 meters, fought on its own and later claimed to have destroyed 94 tanks and 184 motor vehicles.

 

By the middle of August, although isolated pockets of enemy resistance remained, the situation west of the Dnieper could be regarded as stabilized. From 17 August on, Luftflotte 4 accordingly moved its efforts farther to the east, hitting the communications center of Dnepropetrovsk day and night in the hope of preventing the Soviets from making further withdrawals and preparing for the Germans' own forthcoming offensive. Owing partly to distance and partly to sheer wear and tear, the number of fighters available to Fliegerkorps V was down to 44. Although these fighters performed marvels (on 30 August, there was an announcement that 1,000 Soviet aircraft had been shot down in air-to-air combat), they could not be everywhere at once. Hence, a Soviet attack on the bridge across the Dnieper at Gornostaypol, which the Germans had taken in a coup de main, was successful in delaying the advance of Sixth Army once again. Fliegerkorps V was, however, able to protect the first bridgehead built by 1st Panzer Group across the Dnieper on 8 September against determined Soviet attempts to attack it from the air.

 

Throughout this period, Fliegerkorps IV, with its weaker forces, continued to fly missions in support of Eleventh Army, which was approaching the Crimea. It attacked the bridges across the Dniester to prevent Soviet reinforcements and to prevent the escape of Soviet forces from the Uman pocket. The center of gravity gradually shifted eastward until Odessa, used by the Soviets in an attempt to evacuate their forces by sea, became the most important target.  When the Rumanians crossed the Dniester in the middle of July, Fliegerkorps IV typically switched back to close support. The same pattern was thus revealed in this somewhat separate theater as everywhere else. If only because not even Richthofen's close support experts could respond to the army's demands in less than two hours, the Luftwaffe's normal preference was for what the Germans called operativ warfare and what we would call behind-the-front interdiction. At least during the early phases of the campaign, close support came into its own only when a clear geographical line divided the forces on both sides or else when a Soviet counterattack created an emergency.

At 0300, 22 June 1941, the Luftwaffe opened the campaign by the now-standard method of a surprise strike at the enemy's airfields. The weather that day was almost perfect-warm and sunny with a slight haze that cleared up later during the day. For reasons that remain inexplicable to this day, the Soviets had made no preparations to oppose the aggressors. The German pilots found Red aircraft by the hundreds lined up wingtip-to-wingtip on the aprons, and they reported very little opposition on the ground or in the air.  According to whether they consisted of bombers, fighters, or dive bombers, German units flew as many as four, five, six, or even eight missions per day-astonishing figures attributable to the simplicity of the machines, the often short distances that had to be covered, the excellence of the ground organization (including a specially developed apparatus that allowed nine aircraft to be refueled simultaneously), and the unparalleled determination of the crews. The first attack was carried out by 637 bombers (including dive bombers) and 231 fighters . Reportedly it hit 31 airfields, three suspected billets of high-level staffs, two barracks, two artillery positions, a bunker system, and an oil depot, all at the cost of two fighters missing. By the evening of the first day, some 1,800 Soviet aircraft were reported destroyed, the great majority on the ground but 322 of them shot down as they rose to meet the German machines. (This disproportion was to prove important later on because Soviet aircrews had not been affected and would survive to fight another day.)

 

Meanwhile, photoreconnaissance was being conducted on a grand scale. It disclosed the existence of numerous additional airfields, 130 of which were identified and attacked during the next few days. By the end of the first week, the Armed Forces High Command was able to report the destruction of 4,017 Soviet aircraft against a loss of only 150 German ones.  By 12 July Soviet losses had risen to about 6,850. This included entire bomber squadrons flying obsolescent machines without fighter cover that were shot down like turkeys as they hurled themselves at the invading German columns. After the first few days, Soviet air operations were reduced to scattered attacks by small numbers of aircraft that appeared out of nowhere, dropped or fired their ordnance, and made off as best they could. Having achieved air superiority to the point that they could command the sky whenever and wherever they wanted, the Germans on 25 June felt that the time had come to shift the center of gravity to support their own ground forces. In so doing, they soon discovered that the number of aircraft available was never really sufficient to cover the vast theater of operations; this in itself made a coordinated system of operativ warfare difficult since the constant demands for air support tended to disrupt planning, dissipate the available forces, and hinder the creation of Schwerpunkte. Russian roads, often consisting of mere tracks, were difficult to attack because they were usually easy to repair or bypass. Attacks on Russian villages, designed to reduce houses to rubble and thus block the communications passing between them, seldom led to lasting results owing to the wide distances separating the houses and to the wood used in their construction. In the north, as well as on the fringes of the Pripet Marshes, extensive forests enabled even large units, particularly those consisting of infantry or cavalry, to escape observation from the air.

 

Still, in other ways the Russian countryside offered advantages to the attacker from the air. The density of the railway network was relatively low, there being only 52,000 miles of track (many of them single) in the entire gigantic country. Hence, the task of disrupting the lines and bringing traffic to a standstill did not appear as insoluble as it would have been if the USSR had been a developed Western country with many intersecting, parallel, and redundant lines of communication and numerous technically advanced facilities for repair and maintenance. In the center and south, the open, flat, almost treeless terrain-much like the American Midwest-made it nearly impossible for ground units to find cover against air attack except by utilizing the occasional ravines. A well-planned campaign should have exploited these advantages and avoided the obstacles. However, this was something that the Germans, operating with only relatively small forces and trying to achieve too many things at once, were never really able to do.

 

The Luftwaffe's central archives were destroyed at the end of the war, and no good information is forthcoming from the Soviet side. Therefore, what little quantitative data can be found on the impact of the German air attacks on the Soviet ground forces, transportation system, and logistics have to be put together from the scattered surviving records of individual Luftwaffe units. These show that Ju-88 light bombers of a single Kampfgeschwader (bomber group) belonging to Fliegerkorps II claimed to have destroyed 356 trains and 14 bridges, interrupted railway traffic 322 times, and flown 200 sorties against troop concentrations, barracks, and supply depots in support of Army Group Center in "indirect" operations between 22 June and 9 September. During the same period, and acting in "direct" support of the army, the same unit claimed to have destroyed 30 tanks and 488 motor vehicles in addition to flying some 90 sorties against artillery positions. The Me-110s (twin-engined fighters) of another group claimed to have destroyed only 50 trains and 4 bridges between 22 June and 27 September but compensated by scoring 148 tanks, 166 guns, and 3,280 vehicles of all kinds.

 

As the records of many ground units show, Soviet opposition in the air during this period was so weak as to be almost negligible. This permitted even single-engined fighters to be diverted away from the escort role to attacking ground targets, and so one Jagdgeschwader (fighter group) flying in support of Army Group Center was able to report 142 tanks and armored cars, 16 guns, 34 locomotives, 432 trucks and one train destroyed. Certain entries in the diary of the chief of the German Army General Staff-who himself relied on information originating in the Luftwaffeshow that these attacks were not without effect on ground operations. On individual occasions, they deprived the Soviet armies of supplies, blocked reinforcements, and created congestion on the Ukrainian railroads in particular. However, the available evidence does not permit a detailed reconstruction of the impact of these operations on the campaign as a whole.

 

In the north, the German ground operations had three aims. They were to surround and cut off the Soviet forces in the Baltic countries (Eighteenth Army on the left), advance on the shortest line to Leningrad (4th Panzer Group in the center), and cover the right flank while keeping in touch with Army Group Center (Sixteenth Army on the right). These diverging objectives, imposed on Army Group North by Hitler himself, are open to criticism; however, because the terrain in this theater, as in Russia as a whole, became more open as the attacking army advanced further toward the east, gaps were bound to appear on the flanks of the advancing spearheads.

 

The German system of maneuver warfare was by now fully developed. Its consistent aim was to drive deep wedges into the enemy and to encircle his forces (consisting, as of 10 July, of 31 divisions and six independent mechanized brigades grouped together under Soviet Field Marshal Kliment Voroshilov's Northwestern Front). The speed of the advance was spectacular, reaching 40 miles per day during the first few days. Nevertheless, Army Group North never really succeeded in cutting off the main Soviet forces as it had planned to do. Nor did it have the infantry needed to seal what pockets that were formed; many Red Army units, though isolated from each other, remained intact or, at any rate, sufficiently cohesive to continue fighting, especially since the dense forests afforded plenty of room for them to hide. It fell to the Luftwaffe to leap into the breach and to identify and prevent counterattacks from developing into dangerous threats. This caused its independence to be gradually eroded until finally it was reduced to the role of a mobile fire brigade, just the kind of thing Luftwaffe leaders had always wanted to avoid.

 

For example, on 27 June units of Fliegerkorps I were instrumental in beating back a Soviet counteroffensive near Shaulyai (Schaulen), Latvia, where approximately 200 enemy tanks were destroyed. 24 On 2 and 3 July the same units first helped breach the fortifications along the old border and then, switching back to operativ warfare, attacked the bridges over the Dvina River in order to prevent the Soviets from making good their escape to the northeast. In this they were only partly successful. On 6 July it was the turn of the Red Air Force to try and wreck the bridges over the Dvina in order to slow down the German pursuit. This enabled General Keller's Luftflotte 1 fighters to shoot down 65 out of 73 attacking aircraft, thus putting an end to large-scale enemy attempts to interfere with ground operations in this sector. Units of Luftflotte 1 also assisted in supplying Sixteenth Army during its advance, given the single road (in reality, little better than a forest track) leading from Pskov toward Narva had not yet been cleared and was dominated by isolated Red Army units.  

 

Thus, during the first two weeks of the campaign, all the ways in which an air force might assist maneuver warfare were displayed to the fullest. As flying units were moved forward onto newly captured Soviet airfields, the distances between them and their targets diminished. Beginning in the second week of July, this permitted the Luftwaffe to mount repeated attacks on the Moscow-Leningrad railway with the aim of severing communications between Russia's two most important cities .28 Like others after them, however, the Germans were to learn that railways, while not difficult to disrupt, were not difficult to repair. Though traffic suffered, the line could not be completely cut until the ground forces had advanced sufficiently to throw a ring around the city.

 

Beginning in the last week of July, Luftflotte 1 was reinforced by Gen Wolfram von Richthofen's Fliegerkorps VIII, which was detached from its original assignment to Army Group Center and brought up to the newly occupied Baltic airfields. Acting in his favorite role as a close-support expert, Richthofen repeatedly massed his forces to deliver concentrated blows at key targets. On 15 August they assisted Sixteenth Army in the capture of Novgorod. On 24 August their intervention was decisive in beating back a Soviet counteroffensive against the left wing of Army Group North at Staraya Russa. On 28 August they helped bring the attack on Tallinn (Reval) to a successful conclusion. However, despite repeated attempts and many hits on both warships and freighters, Luftflotte 1 was unable to prevent the bulk of the Red Fleet from retreating to Kronstadt and Leningrad. In a sort of mini-Dunkirk, the Soviets succeeded in evacuating some of their troops in the Baltic, and these were later instrumental in the defense of Leningrad.

 

Fliegerkorps VIII was still available when the offensive against Leningrad got under way on 26 September. Against strong antiaircraft fire, it helped the units of Fliegerkorps I attack targets within the city as well as ships in the harbor; a Soviet counterattack in the direction of Lake Ladoga was beaten off, and the ring around "the capital of Bolshevism" closed. However, only a few days later, Richthofen's units were taken away and sent back to support the offensive of Army Group Center against Moscow. Army Group North itself had now been deprived of the bulk of Fourth Panzer Army, which was also sent to the Moscow area. Relying on a single motorized corps (XXXIX), it was still able to carry out a last offensive effort, crossing the Volkhov River in the direction of Tikhvin, where it hoped to link up with the Finns on the river Svir. Though its aircraft (Ju-88s) were not really suited to the task, especially in view of the densely wooded nature of the terrain, Fliegerkorps I flew missions directly supporting the operation as well as attacking railway lines leading into the area. After bitter fighting, Tikhvin fell on 9 November. However, the battle was by no means at an end, and the Germans, finding themselves counterattacked by three Soviet armies under Gen K. A. Meretskov, were forced to evacuate it a month later. By this time, bad weather, including persistent winter fog, affected the operations of Luftflotte 1 to the point where it was unable to reconnoiter effectively, let alone mount coordinated attacks on what targets could still be identified. The operations of Army Group North became essentially static and were destined to remain so until the siege of the city was lifted in January 1944.

 

In this siege, Luftflotte 1, its forces much reduced by losses and by the limited availability of aircraft, was assigned the task of attacking military targets within the city as well as the supply routes leading to it. In spite of the reported destruction (by 23 August) of 2,541 enemy aircraft plus 433 probable kills, Soviet opposition began reviving in the autumn, and by the end of the year the city was defended by several hundred fighters, 300 balloons, and 600 antiaircraft artillery barrels. Although the Germans never lost the ability to gain air superiority where and when they wanted, they were unable to make much headway in capturing Leningrad. From September through December 1941, the Luftwaffe dropped a total of 1,500 tons of bombs on targets in and around Leningrad; this was less than the amount dropped by Allied air forces on a single German city in a single night in 1944-45. As a result, the lifeline to Leningrad, which as of 18 November consisted of motor convoys (later a railway as well) crossing over frozen Lake Ladoga, could never be completely severed for any length of time.

 

As 1941 drew to an end, the troops of Luftlotte 1, living under impossible conditions and prevented by the weather from flying much of the time, were drowning their sorrows in alcohol.

As the German forces were being assembled in the east slowly at first and then more rapidly from February 1941, when the real buildup began-the Luftwaffe was still engaged in fighting England. Its first move consisted of an attempt to destroy the Royal Air Force's (RAF) Fighter Command and gain air superiority in order to pave the way for a seaborne invasion. The Luftwaffe was unsuccessful, however, both because the Germans appear to have failed to realize the importance of sustained attacks on the opposing radar system and because the RAF, favored by geography that allowed it to withdraw its aircraft beyond the range of the German fighters, was able to dictate the pace of the battle as it saw fit.9 From the end of September 1940, the Germans, confronted by growing opposition, changed their tactics. First, they shifted to daytime bombardment of British "strategic" objectives. When that proved too expensive-again and again in World War II, it was shown that unaccompanied bombers stood little chance against modern fighters-they concentrated on nighttime attacks directed, insofar as any center of gravity can be detected, against aircraft factories and harbors. Britain's cities, particularly London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Coventry suffered heavily. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe, its twin-engined light and medium bombers designed for participation in operativ warfare and not for waging an independent strategic campaign, never came close to forcing the British to their knees. Indeed, the realization of this fact was one of the factors that finally drove Hitler to decide to turn east.

 

The Luftwaffe received with mixed feelings the news that Germany was about to invade Russia. Many of its leaders, including Hermann Goering and his deputy, Eberhard Milch, tried to warn Hitler against waging a two-front war because of the inevitable dissipation of forces that would follow.  Others, however, expressed relief at the anticipated return from independent "strategic" warfare to the more congenial operativ form of war to be waged in conjunction with the rest of the Wehrmacht. "Finally, a real campaign" was the comment of Chief of Staff Hans Jeschonnek. Directive No. 21 had charged the Wehrmacht with "destroying the Soviet forces in a rapid campaign" in order to prevent their withdrawal into the interior. Within this general framework, the task of the Luftwaffe was defined as (1) knocking out the Soviet air force in order to obtain and maintain air superiority over the theater of operations ; (2) supporting the operations of Army Group Center and, in a more selective form (Schwerpunktmaessig, literally "by way of forming centers of gravity"), those of the other army groups; (3) disrupting the Soviet railway net in order to prevent reinforcement on the one hand and withdrawal on the other; and (4) capturing important transportation bottlenecks such as bridges ahead of friendly forces by using parachutists and gliders.  "In order to use all available forces in support of the Army," the directive went on, "the enemy's armaments industry should not be targeted during the main campaign," meaning that the German forces would be directed against the regular Soviet forces rather than at whatever resistance would remain after the destruction of those forces. Only after the end of the mobile phase of operations would attacks on the Soviet armaments industry, chiefly in the Urals, get under way.

 

In preparation for the campaign, the Luftwaffe divided its forces into three Luftlotten. (The forces that operated in support of the Finns in the far north will not be considered here, since there was little opportunity for maneuver warfare there.) Each was clearly earmarked for the support of one army group, although from the command and control point of view, there was no question of subordinating air force units to ground headquarters-but rather only of cooperation between them. In the north, Luftflotte 1 was commanded by Gen Alfred Keller. His flying units, consisting merely of a single air corps, Fliegerkorps I, and a few smaller forces, possessed a total of 592 transport and combat aircraft (453 operational), plus 176 reconnaissance and liaison machines (143 operational). In the center, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's Luftlotte 2 was much stronger with two Fliegerkorps (II and VIII)-1,367 transport and combat aircraft (994 operational) and 224 reconnaissance and liaison machines (200 operational). Finally, Gen Alexander Loehr's Luftlotte 4, with two air corps (Fliegerkorps IV and V), supported Army Group South. Its forces consisted of transport and combat aircraft (694 operational), plus 239 reconnaissance and liaison machines (208 operational). The total number of combat aircraft (bombers, fighters, and close support) was 2,713, of which 2,080 were operational. Thus, in spite of the huge task with which it was faced militarily as well as geographically, the German air force in the east had a strength no greater than it had been during the French campaign in the previous year. This reflected the fact that fully one-third of its forces had to be left to fight in the west, the north (Norway), or the Mediterranean; qualitatively, too, the forces on the eastern front were not the most modern since obsolescent aircraft no longer capable of serving against Britain were still considered fit to confront the Soviets .  

 

Throughout the first half of 1941, the Luftwaffe was hard at work preparing for the campaign. The aircraft industry and training facilities were expanded until they were considered able to keep up with anticipated losses, but no more. Luftwaffe units flew numerous photoreconnaissance missions inside Soviet territory, and the list of targets within a 200-mile zone from the frontier had been completed by the end of April 1941. Meanwhile, many new airfields were built and existing ones improved, the necessary ground organization put in place, and the required reserves of POL, ammunition, and equipment assembled. The last stage, starting towards the end of May, was to bring in the flying units themselves under a heavy cloak of secrecy. In Hitler's own words, the German ability to win this most ambitious of all campaigns rapidly and decisively depended on tanks and aircraft working together in order to "break the Russian." Thus, the importance of a smooth system for air-to-ground cooperation was greater than ever; yet, when hostilities broke out, the organizational problems of securing it had by no means been solved in spite of many suggestions raised by Richthofen and other key Luftwaffe commanders.

 

The system that divided responsibility between the Kolufts on the one hand and the Flivos on the other remained in force. A process of decentralization took place as both types of officers were increased in numbers until, instead of there being one for each army and corps, one of each could be assigned to every division. Towards the end of 1941, the Flivos even started accompanying some individual regiments, although there were never enough of them to expand this system to the army as a whole.  Each air corps (instead of air fleet, as formerly) headquarters now included a Nahkampfuehrer. His task was to coordinate all Luftwaffe support for the army, for which purpose he was given operational control over all units available for that mission. Some progress was also made in providing ground and air units with common radio apparatus to enable them to communicate directly with each other. At Fliegerkorps VIII, experienced Stuka pilots were now riding in Mark III tanks and acting as forward air controllers. Nevertheless, the German army as a whole still depended on various agreed-on, rather primitive, visual recognition signals to prevent attacks on friendly troops. Above all, Goering steadfastly refused any measures that would have assigned the army any control over the sorties flown by Luftwaffe combat units, and the Germans had to wait until 1944 for a real solution for that problem.

 

Like the Soviet Union in general, the Red Air Force at this time was something of a mystery to the Germans.  The chief of intelligence at the Luftwaffe General Staff was Gen Joseph Schmidt, an opinionated officer whose estimates of the situation reflected his Nazi prejudices. He put total enemy strength at approximately 10,500 machines, including 7,500 in Europe. Supposedly the Soviets had 1,360 reconnaissance aircraft and bombers, plus perhaps 2,200 fighters (including those added during the first half of 1941). Most of the machines were supposed (correctly as it turned out) to be inferior to their German equivalents both in general flying characteristics and, to an even greater extent, in specialized instruments such as radio and navigational aids. The Germans assumed the mass of the Soviet air force personnel, including pilots, to be primitive and ill-trained by Western standards and their organization as a whole to be heavy-handed and inflexible. They believed that once the Germans occupied the industrial centers in European Russia, the Soviets would not be able to keep up their strength in aircraft and would be reduced to fighting in uncoordinated remnants-a belief that turned out to be grossly mistaken.

Soviet production of new submarines began in 1927. Clandestine cooperation with Germany gave Soviet engineers access to design data for German types from late World War I: minelayers, Type UBIII, and Mittel-U. The Soviets salved and recommissioned the sunken British submarine L-55, which gave them access to late-war British design information. Soviet designers also gained considerable data from rehabilitating the later czarist-era Bubnov-designed boats and the final examples of the ubiquitous Holland H-type submarines. Synthesizing this information permitted the Soviets to produce a wide variety of submarines on a large scale. There were two basic series of “M”-type coastal submarines, two basic medium submarine series—the “Shch” or Pike type of indigenous origin (though strongly influenced by British practice), and the later “S”-type derived from the same basic design as the German Type VII, minelayers of the “L”-type developed from the L-55, and long-range boats of the “K”-type. At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Soviet Union deployed the world’s largest submarine force, with 168 boats in service.

 

The final “M”-type displaced 283 tons surfaced, had a range of 4,500 miles at 8 knots on the surface or 36 hours at 3 knots submerged, could dive to 295 feet, and had a battery of 2 torpedo tubes with 4 torpedoes and a 45mm antiaircraft gun. The developed “S”-type displaced 856 tons surfaced, had a range of 9,500 miles at 9 knots on the surface or 45 hours at 3 knots submerged, could dive to 330 feet, and had a battery of 6 torpedo tubes with 12 torpedoes and a 4-inch deck gun. Their indigenous rivals displaced 587 tons, had a range of 3,650 miles at 7 knots or 50 hours at 2.5 knots submerged, could dive to 295 feet, and carried 6 torpedo tubes with 10 torpedoes. The minelayers displaced 1,108 tons, had a range of 10,000 miles at 8.6 knots or 60 hours at 2.5 knots submerged, could dive to 330 feet, and carried 8 torpedo tubes with 14 torpedoes and 20 mines. The “K”-type were very popular with their crews and were regarded as the best Soviet submarines of World War II. They displaced 1,480 tons, had a range of 15,000 miles at 9 knots or 50 hours at 2.5 knots submerged, could dive to 330 feet, and carried 10 torpedo tubes with 24 torpedoes. Despite this variety, the Soviet Union’s yards produced large numbers of submarines during World War II, completing some 200 boats during the course of the conflict.

SERIES XIV (1938) “K” class

K-1 (29 April 1938), K-2 (29 April 1938), K- 3 (31 July 1938), K-56 (29 December 1940), K-55 (7 February 1941), K- 54 (March 1941), K-57 (1946)

Builder: Admiralty K-22 (4 November 1938), K-23 (28 April 1939), K-52 (5 July 1939), K-51 (30 July 1939), K-21 (14 August 1939), K-53 ( 2 September 1939), K-24 (1940)

Builder: Baltic K-58, K-60, K-77, K-78 (1946)

Builder: Zhdanov

Displacement : 1490 tons (surfaced), 2140 tons (submerged)

Dimensions: 320940 x 24930 x 149100

Machinery: 4 diesel engines, 2 electric motors, 2 shafts. 8400 bhp/2400 shp = 21/10 knots

Range: 14,000 nm at 9 knots surfaced, 160 nm at 3 knots submerged

Armament: 10 x 533mm torpedo tubes (6 bow, 2 stern, 2 trainable external mounts), total 24 torpedoes, 20 mines, 2 x 100mm guns, 2 x 45mm AA guns Complement: 60

 

Mikhail Alekseevich Rudnitskiy designed these large double-hull cruiser submarines. In addition to mines laid through two vertical tubes amidships, these boats originally were to carry a seaplane in a hangar abaft the conning tower, but the aviation proposal was abandoned. These submarines performed well and were the best Soviet-designed boats in service during World War II. All the class operated with the Northern Fleet. One additional boat building at Leningrad was not completed because of the German siege.

 

The K- 22 was mined off Cape Harbaken on 6 February 1942; the K-23 was lost off Okse Fjord on 12 May; the K- 2 failed to return from a patrol off the Norwegian coast in September. The K-3 was lost off Batsfjord on 21 March 1943, and the K-1 probably was mined in the Kara Sea in October. The surviving boats were stricken in the late 1950s, and the K-21 became a memorial at Severomorsk.

Captain Lunin

K-21

According to citations from captain Lunin's report - at 16:55 sonarman detected far unclear sounds, at 17:00 the deck-house of submarine was detected by watch officer via periscope and soon it became clear that was not submarine but the bridge of one of escort destroyers, at 17:15 Lunin detected battleship, heavy cruiser and 8 destroyers from ~30 cables [in reality those were battleship, 2 heavy cruisers, 7 destroyers and 2 torpedo boats], the attack was performed at 18:01 from 18-20 cables by 4 torpedoes with time gaps 4 sec; in 135 sec soundman heard two explosions, at 18:31, 18:32 and 18:38 long explosions were detected which continued 20 sec each. The periscope was raised at 19:05 and there were no any ships on the horizon.

HQ officers supposed after analysis that all torpedoes missed because of errors in determination of target course angle and speed, the same did historians later [speed of Tirpitz was 24 knots and Lunin calculated it as 22 knots, target course angle was 90 degrees and Lunin calculated it as 60 degrees]. If Lunin used time gaps in torpedo salvo not 4 sec but 14 sec he could hit the target with high possibility [probably, he didn't want to stay at periscope depth too long]. In principle, such torpedo fire [90 degrees of target course, angle, distance 18-20 cables and speed 22-24 knots] was prohibited by Soviet naval manuals as useless and Lunin, probably, just wanted to use at least small chance.

The explosion heard at 18:04 was explosion from self-exploded torpedoes after their maximal run, explosions between 18:31-18:38 were from depth charges of German destroyers which detected British submarine. Germans didn't detect K-21 and couldn't hear explosions from missed torpedoes so they got info about attack against "Tirpitz" only after interception of radio message from the Soviet submarine.

Prof. Platonov doesn't mention in his excellent book that "Tirpitz" was among official claimed hits of K-21. Even Dmitriev [Soviet-era historian] who described the "combat" between K-21 and Norwegian fishing motor boats as combat between K-21 and German anti-submarine vessels mentioned only that K-21 attacked very powerful German battleship "Tirpitz" using stern torpedo tubes and there are no words about any hits.

The fact that submarine attacked "Tirpitz" was very important itself that time [especially the radio message from K-21 which was intercepted by British convoy and Germans] - the visibility and sea state were very good so Lunin could raise periscope only for very short period of time [and that caused mistakes in the definition of distance and target course angle - as the result Lunin fired from stern tubes under very disadvantageous position], Lunin (as well as all other Soviet submarine commanders) had absolutely no experience in attack of large high-speed warship guarded by strong escort and performed anti-submarine manoeuvring [and he did that for the first and single time during the war among Soviet submarines], Lunin also didn't know the abilities of modern German anti-submarine weapons and he was afraid for his submarine and crew too much.

Translated from Russian.

Though the Battle of Kursk is rightly considered a tank engagement, the struggle in the skies was no less important. The Luftwaffe gave the panzer divisions excellent aerial support, but the Red Air Force was to prove the eventual master in the air.

 

The Luftwaffe commitment at the beginning of Operation Citadel was 1800 aircraft. This figure represented some two-thirds of the machines deployed on the entire Eastern Front. The bulk of this force was concentrated to support the southern pincer under VIII Air Corps commanded by General Otto Dessloch. A squadron commander during World War I, Dessloch had vast experience, having led various Luftwaffe units prior to the Kursk operation. Under Dessloch's leadership, VIII Air Corps controlled the flying units of 4th Air Fleet, 1st Hungarian Air Division and I FlaK (antiaircraft artillery) Corps, disposing a total of 1100 aircraft. Included amongst these flying formations were seven units of dive-bombers, the infamous Ju 87D Stuka.

The Stukas were expected to carry out their classic role, established during four years of war, as flying artillery plunging out of the skies to bomb and strafe the enemy immediately ahead of the panzer wedges. The near-vertical dive that preceded bomb release was accompanied by a howling wail, as the pilot aimed his aircraft at the target, a wail that froze the blood of the men on the ground, convincing them that they as individuals had been specially chosen for death.

 

Operation Citadel was the last time the Stuka would be employed in this manner, as its performance no longer matched the demands of the Eastern Front. When their dive-bomber role was rescinded, all the remaining Stukas were transferred to low-level ground-attack duties, and it was during the Kursk operation that Stuka "tank busters" were employed on a wide scale for the first time. A 37mm antitank gun was fitted under each wing, and this weight of fire in the hands of an expert such as Flight-Lieutenant Hans-Ulrich Rudel was to wreak havoc in the Soviet tank fleets. It is claimed that Rudel destroyed 12 tanks on the first day of Citadel alone.

 

Another first for the Luftwaffe at Kursk was the employment of Schlactsgeschwaders (ground-attack wings) utilizing Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-4s and Henschel Hs 129 B-2/R2s in large numbers. The Henschel Hs 129 had been designed specifically as a "tank buster". In its nose were two 7.92mm machine guns and two 20mm cannons, but its real power was in its main armament, a single 30mm Mark 101 or 103 cannon housed in a gondola beneath the fuselage. When brought to bear on the thin engine housing at the real of a tank, unarmoured lorries or the timber-built Soviet bunkers, this weight of fire was usually fatal. The Fw 190s operated closely with the Hs 129s, dropping SD1 and SD2 fragmentation bombs to disrupt the Soviet infantry attack lines.

 

The slow speed of the ground-attack aircraft such as the Hs 129 and the Stuka necessitated close fighter cooperation to allow their crews to concentrate on the job in hand, and this was to be provided by the Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-5s. The armament of the Fw 190 — four 20mm cannon in the wings and two 7.92mm machine guns in the forward fuselage — coupled with a speed of 605km/h (382mph), made it a fighter to be reckoned with. The weaponry and performance of the Bf 109 was similar. Heavier bombing operations were to be conducted by other tried and trusted aircraft, such as the Heinkel He III and the Junkers Ju 88.

 

The Luftwaffe supported the northern pincer with Colonel-General Ritter von Greim's 6th Air Fleet, which consisted of the 1st Air Division, the 12th FlaK Division and the 10th FlaK Brigade. The mixed bag of antitank fighter and bomber aircraft numbered 730. Amongst these were three Stuka groups. The guns of the FlaK units were highly effective weapons, particularly the 88mm. However, such was the effectiveness of the 88 against Soviet tanks that many FlaK batteries were assigned to the Wehrmacht to bolster the antitank gun formations which had less effective weapons. The consequence was that the protection available to Axis airfields was severely curtailed.

 

The Luftwaffe that now geared up for Operation Citadel was not the one that had dominated the Russian skies for almost two years. Commander of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, had promised that no bombs would fall on the Reich. By early 1943 the emptiness of his words was proven daily by the Anglo-American bomber offensive that damaged Germany's industrial output and chiselled away at the people's morale. To counter this, Göring had withdrawn many fighter squadrons from the Eastern Front and diverted aircraft output to the West, with the consequence that the Eastern Front fought with diminished assets. To further compound this difficult situation, the Western air war was given priority in the allocation of fuel, so that the fuel allowance for the Battle of Kursk was 30 percent below its actual requirement.

 

However, the experience of the aircrews, the efficiency of the ground crews and the superiority of the machines were all factors that the ordinary German soldier took for granted; after all, had not the Wehrmacht enjoyed almost total air superiority over the Red Air force since the first hours of Operation Barbarossa? What the Landser in their trenches were unaware of was that the Red Air Force was now not, as it had been for so long, mere target practice for the Red Baron's proteges, but a real force to be reckoned with, and one to be taken very seriously indeed.

 

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On 5 July the day dawned bright and warm. On the dusty runways of Belgorod, Kharkov, Poltava and Dnepropetrovsk the Ju 88 and He 111 bombers of VIII Air Corps lined up for take-off as the first waves of the Citadel air offensive, when the wireless monitoring service reported a considerable increase in Soviet air traffic, and soon afterwards the "Freya" radar at Kharkov detected the approach of large air formations from the east. These formations contained 132 Shturmoviks and 285 fighters of the Second and Seventeenth Air Armies, detailed to destroy the German bombers on the ground when their fighter escorts were not yet airborne. But this pre-emptive strike was not to succeed. The Soviet regiments were intercepted by the Bf 109 Gs of Jagdgeschwader (hunting formations) 3 "Udet" and JG 52 scrambled from Kharkov East and Mikoyanovka, which claimed 120 air victories in the opening air battle.

 

In the northern sector, the Germans reported that Soviet fighter reaction to 1st Airborne Division operations began only in the late afternoon, and the Fw 190 fighters of JG 51 and JG 54 had claimed 115 Soviet aircraft by nightfall. The committal of fighters to the abortive pre-emptive strike in the early morning left the VVS unable to contest Luftwaffe air supremacy on the southern flank of the salient, and in the north, Soviet replies to the Luftwaffe attacks were tardy and ineffectual. The two fighter corps designated to give frontline cover, Yumashev's VI Fighter Corps over the Central Front and Klimov's V Fighter Corps over the Voronezh Front, were unable to cope. Without adequate air cover, the Soviet ground forces lost confidence and the Wehrmacht began to make headway. Novikov had to give his attention first to the failings of his fighters and, as a result of his investigations, Yumashev and Klimov were both replaced, VI Fighter Corps being taken over by Major-General Yerlykin and V Fighter Corps by Major-General Galunov.

 

Nor were the Soviet attacks on German armour initially successful. Despite new antitank bombs, their RS-82 rockets and more formidable 37mm cannon, the Il-2 Shturmoviks failed to get through and stop the panzers rolling forward. Flying in small groups, the Il-2s and Pe-2s often lacked fighter escort or they were abandoned when the very first sign of trouble appeared.

 

On Khudyakov's orders, the Shturmoviks began to fly in much larger formations of regimental size to make escort easier, and to enable the Il-2s to break through and suppress ground fire by sheer weight of numbers and the persistence of attack. Flying in pelang formation - staggered line abreast — the Il-2s no longer made hasty passes at low level under favourable conditions, but carried out calculated dive approaches from under 1000m (3280ft) at angles of 30-40 degrees, releasing their bombs and rockets when 200-300m (656-984ft) from their target, and making repeated passes with cannon and machine guns.

 

At the end of the second day, in the north of the salient, the VVS had overcome its problems and was able to contain the German fighters, if not the bombers. But from 7 July the Sixteenth Air Army got into its stride and began to wear down the Luftwaffe. By 8 July Khudyakov was able to report on the improvement in Shturmovik potency, and the Luftwaffes power to control air space over the battle areas declined. The Luftwaffe was running out of replacements to maintain its squadrons at full strength, and the RAF began to range more freely over the German lines.

 

Although the Germans could still mount effective ground-support missions, in specific areas if not along the entire combat zone, their superiority was being eroded at an alarming rate. By the end of effective ground-offensive operations in the northern sector, the power of the Luftwaffe was much reduced.

 

The picture to the south was much the same. Soviet weight of numbers and the increasingly efficient use of machines whittled away at the numerically inferior Germans, and by 11 July the Luftwaffe was only able to achieve success in narrow areas such as supporting the thrust of II SS Panzer Corps towards Prokhorovka. As Rotmistrov described the scene over the battlefield of Prokhorovka from his command post:

"At the same time, furious aerial combats developed over the battlefield. Soviet as well as German airmen tried to help their ground forces to win the battle. The bombers, ground-support aircraft and fighters seemed to be permanently suspended in the sky over Prokhorovka. One aerial combat followed another. Soon the whole sky was shrouded by the thick smoke of the burning wrecks."

 

If Prokhorovka was, as Konev described it, "the swansong of the German armour", then Operation Citadel would mark the coming of age of the Red Air Force. For the first time since the outbreak of war, the VVS had met the Luftwaffe on almost equal terms, and although there was a long way to go before they reached the final victory, the Soviet air fleets had clipped the wings of Hitler's Luftwaffe and had gained control of their own skies once more.

According to the plan for Citadel, the XXXXI and XXXXVI Panzer Corps would lead the attack, penetrate the Soviet defences and advance 10-12km (6-7.5 miles) on the first day of the offensive. By the fifth clay, the XXXXVII Panzer Corps, which was the strongest formation within the 9th Army, would move through the gap in the Soviet line created by the other panzer corps and continue to the area east of Kursk. The two army corps - XX and XXIII - would protect the flanks of the advancing panzer corps. The 9th Army would proceed southwards and ultimately link with the 4th Panzer Army, which would travel northwards from the region around Belgorod.

 

Under the Citadel plan, Army Group South (AGS) would direct the attack against the southern part of the Kursk bulge. Commanded by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, the AGS would situate the 4th Panzer Army, led by Colonel General Hermann Hoth, in the Belgorod region. The 4th Panzer Army, the strongest German force in the Kursk area, was also called Army Detachment Hoth. Horn's formation contained three corps: the LII Army Corps, the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps and the II SS Panzer Corps. The LII Army Corps, which was in the left sector of the line and would attack the Soviet 40th Army, contained two full-strength infantry divisions — the 57th and the 332nd - and one division with six battalions - the 255th. The 332nd Infantry Division had not seen much combat and, consequently, was the strongest division in the corps. The XXXXVIII Panzer Corps would hold the centre of the line in the part to the left of the assault area. The corps included three panzer and one infantry division. In the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps sector, the Grossdeutschland Panzergrenadier Division would be on the left, the 11th Panzer Division would be in the centre, and the nine battalions of the 167th Infantry Division would be on the right. The corps commander would keep the 3rd Panzer Division in reserve in the area south of Kharkov. The strongest of the 4th Panzer Army's three corps was the II SS Panzer Corps. The II SS Panzer Corps had a Tiger battalion with 45 Tiger tanks. The corps contained three strong SS panzer divisions: the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich and Totenkopf. Each of these divisions had at least 100 of the latest tanks and 13 attached Tigers.

 

According to the OKH plan, formations of the II SS and XXXXVIII Panzer Corps would launch the main attack from an area south-east of Tomarovka. A shock group would break out and head for Oboian and Kursk. By the fifth or sixth day, advance elements of the 4th Panzer Army would link with elements of the 9th Army at Kursk. The two armies would capture Kursk by the tenth day of the offensive, and they would gradually destroy the Soviet forces caught within the bulge. The Germans expected to capture a large number of Soviet soldiers, which they would send back to Germany to work in war industries. Once control of Kursk was re-established, the Wehrmacht could transfer divisions back to the West to meet the threat posed by the Americans and the British in North Africa.

 

The 4th Panzer Army's main problem throughout the offensive would be shortages of infantry troops. The protection of the 4th Panzer Army's eastern flank initially fell to Army Detachment Kempf, which was commanded by General of Panzer Troops Werner Kempf. Army Detachment Kempf contained three corps: III Panzer Corps on the left, Corps Raus south of III Panzer Corps, and XXXXII Army Corps opposite the Soviet 57th Army. The III Panzer Corps contained three panzer divisions and one infantry division. A strong formation in good condition, the III Panzer Corps -would play a significant role in the battle. Corps Raus, which included two full-strength infantry divisions, was in excellent condition. It would protect the flank of the attack against the 7th Soviet Guards Army. General Kempf held the XXXXII Army Corps, which included three full-strength infantry divisions, in reserve. Although the original intention had been to use Army Detachment Kempf as a flank guard, this unit would play a key role in Operation Citadel. Unlike the 9th Army and the 4th Panzer Army, Army Detachment Kempf would attack the shoulder of the Soviet defences, not their strong points.

 

Although the primary assaults against the bulge would come from the north by 9th Army and the south by 4th Panzer Army, Operation Citadel also made provisions for pressure to be applied to the face of the bulge from the west by 2nd Army. Commanded by Colonel General Walter Weiss, the 2nd Army, because of its most recent combat experiences, was much weaker than 9th Army. During the fighting in February and March 1943, the Soviets had decisively beaten the 2nd Army, which had almost been encircled. After the mauling it had received, the 2nd Army, which only had 96,000 men, was incapable of playing a major role at Kursk. Consequently, the 2nd Army, with its seven-plus divisions, received the job of providing a thin screen across the face of the bulge. Weiss divided these divisions, along with three anti-tank detachments, into two army corps: the XIII and VII Army Corps. The two corps, which provided a thin connection between Army Group Centre (AGO and Army Group South (ACS), played a purely defensive role in the offensive. Two divisions of XIII Corps, along with one regiment from another division, would hold the northern part of 2nd Army's sector. While the 82nd Division held the left, the six battalions of the 340th Infantry Division were situated in the centre of the corps' area. VII Corps was responsible for the southern part of the 2nd Army's sector. Four of the 2nd Army's infantry divisions contained nine weak battalions each. The 88th Infantry Division was located next to XIII Corps. South of the 88th Infantry Division were, from left to right, the 26th, the 75th and the 68th Infantry Divisions. The seven weak infantry divisions had the responsibility of covering a 170km (105 mile) front that faced two Soviet armies, the 6th and the 38th.

 

As the preparations neared completion, opponents of Operation Citadel, such as Manstein and General Heinz Guderian, expressed their doubts. Even Hitler vacillated between support for and opposition to the plan. In response to a suggestion made by Colonel General Kurt Zeitzler, Hitler attended a meeting in Munich on 3 May 1943, the earliest date on "which the summer offensive could begin. The topic of discussion was Operation Citadel, which the OKH had delayed on 30 April because the spring rains had not yet ended. Zeitzler wanted Hitler's support because opposition to the plan had arisen. The opponents identified several important problems.

 

First, for the plan to work, the offensive had to begin as soon as the spring thaw ended and before the Soviets began their summer offensive. The target date had been late April or early May. It was 3 May, but preparations for the offensive remained incomplete. Although he had originally supported the plan, Manstein withdrew his support. He believed that the operation's window of opportunity had passed because it would not begin on time. The field marshal hesitated to vocalise his objections too strongly however, as he found it extremely difficult to oppose someone as powerful as the Führer. Secondly, according to Zeitzler, it did not matter if the offensive began late. After all, newly formed units of Panther and Tiger tanks would spearhead the assault. Colonel General Heinz Guderian had received the task of rebuilding the panzer units that would be used in Citadel. Both Guderian and Speer, who also attended the meeting, pointed out the realities of the situation. The production of these weapons involved numerous technical problems, which meant that the numbers available in time for the offensive would be strictly limited. After receiving Hitler's permission to voice his opinion, Guderian suggested that it would be better to use the new tanks on the Western Front against an invasion than to waste them in a frontal assault at Kursk. Neither Zeitzler nor Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, the commander of Army Group Centre (AGC), listened to Guderian and Speer.

Finally, the commander of the 9th Army, which would make the primary assault, opposed the offensive. General Walter Model produced aerial photographs of the Soviet defences at Kursk. As he pointed out, and the photographs demonstrated, the Soviets expected the Germans to attack at Kursk, and they had constructed an elaborate defensive network to meet this attack. Success would be extremely difficult. The Soviets had not been idle while the Germans had prepared for their new offensive.

 

The most ardent supporter of the offensive, as it was designed by Zeitzler, was Field Marshal Günther von Kluge. During the meeting he did not even entertain the idea that the Germans could fail in 1943 as they had in 1941 and 1942. According to Kluge, no defences that the Soviets built could withstand an assault by Tiger and Panther tanks. The new tanks could overcome any obstacle. Like the other generals, Kluge realised that technology fascinated Hitler. Consequently, he played down the production problems and emphasised the powerful capabilities of the new tanks in an attempt to gain further favour. The more Kluge voiced his support for Citadel, the more adamantly Guderian opposed it. While most of the general's opposition was justified, his dislike of Kluge intensified it. The disagreement between the two men reached the point where Kluge challenged Guderian to a duel and asked Hitler to be his second. Calmer heads prevailed, and the duel did not take place. The incident did, however, demonstrate both the dislike the two men felt for each other, and the emotions generated by Operation Citadel.

 

During the conference, Hitler, as always, took centre stage. He summarised both the plan and Model's objections to it. Although he appeared sympathetic to Model's arguments and did not readily give his support, the Führer also hesitated to oppose Citadel. His indecision with regard to a military operation was, at this stage of the war, uncharacteristic. For two days, Hitler and his generals considered the plan and discussed three options. The Germans had the choice of launching the offensive immediately, or they could delay it, or they could cancel it altogether. The issue remained unresolved at the end of the conference. Moreover, because the OKH did not cancel Citadel, the plan remained in effect, but it lacked a starting date.

 

The Germans would ultimately launch their summer offensive in July 1943, long after their original target elate of 3 May. The OKH delayed Citadel several times between 3 May and 5 July. Various factors caused the delays, but not all of them were related to the Eastern Front. Continual rain brought the first decision to delay on 30 April. The Munich conference ended without a new target date being set. Hitler was concerned enough about tank production, fearing that not enough Panthers and Tigers would be available for the attack, to postpone the operation until 12 June. Guderian met with Hitler and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of the Armed Forces Staff, on 10 May. Guderian wanted to preserve materiel and manpower resources for the second front in Western Europe, so he pressed Hitler to cancel Citadel. Keitel argued that political factors dictated the implementation of the offensive. During the discussion, Hitler again expressed concerns, but he did not cancel the plan. On 13 May, after Tunisia fell to Allied forces, the Führer ordered another postponement. Because of the Allies' threat to Italy, he ordered a delay until the end of June.

 

Although he did consider cancelling the offensive, finally, on 1 July, Hitler issued a special order authorising the start of Operation Citadel. The Germans had delayed their summer offensive for two months, during which time the Soviets continued to construct defences and to prepare for the German attack. Evidence presented by Model on 3 May indicated the extent of the enemy's defensive position around Kursk. The Germans gave the Soviets a further two months to improve their defences, and when Operation Citadel finally began on 5 July, they met a well-prepared enemy.

As Hitler reviewed Germany's position in April 1943, the picture was not very bright. Wartime-related economic problems had begun to create discontent in Germany. In addition to Stalingrad, German forces had suffered defeat in North Africa at the hands of the British and the Americans, and Germany was losing the fight to maintain its success against the Allied convoys in the Atlantic Ocean. Neither Turkey nor Japan seemed willing or able to join the war against the Soviet Union, and allies such as Italy and Romania began to investigate -ways to abandon the apparently sinking ship. The war's momentum appeared to be shifting to the enemy. In Hitler's mind, losing the initiative on the Eastern Front would cause irreparable political damage.

 

The losses suffered in the 1942-1943 campaign, however, limited the Fuhrer's options. The German High Command (OKH) realised that it could not mount a major strategic offensive on the Eastern Front. That did not mean, however, that it should abandon the idea of a summer offensive. Manstein and other commanders believed that, at the end of the winter campaign, the Germans had a slight advantage over the Soviets, and it was an advantage that should be exploited as soon as the rasputiza ended in late April or early May. As the German military staff studied a map of the front, a particular part of the line - the Kursk salient - looked increasingly attractive as a site for a limited offensive. The salient was 250km (155 miles) wide and 160km (100 miles) deep. Not only would the elimination of the salient shorten the front line by 250km (155 miles), but it would also release 18-20 Germans divisions for other operations elsewhere in the East or on some other front. The new Chief of the Army High Command, Colonel General Kurt Zeitzler, suggested an attack on the salient. If the Germans attacked the bulge at the shoulders, they could wipe out a large number of Soviet soldiers in a large battle of annihilation without becoming overextended. German troops could conceivably destory two Soviet fronts while opening a large hole in the line. The more the military leaders considered the possibilities offered by an offensive at Kursk, the more attractive it became. A victory at Kursk would open the door to the Caucasus and provide both natural resources and prestige, which would demonstrate to the world that Germany was still strong.

 

The planning for the summer offensive actually began in March. By the middle of the month, the leaders of the OKH issued Operations Order 5, in which they explained the basic premise behind the proposed offensive, which they named Operation Citadel. In devising the plan, the German High Command had to take a number of factors into consideration. First, the Soviets would be making their own plans for a summer offensive: the Germans had to strike before the Soviets were ready to attack. Therefore, Manstein advised launching their assault as soon as the rasputiza ended in late April or early May. Secondly, by attacking as soon as the spring thaw had ended, the Germans would have the added advantage of building on the momentum that they had begun to establish when they had pushed the Soviets to the east and recaptured Kharkov in March. Finally, army leaders had to take into account the manpower and equipment shortages that existed as a result of the campaigns of the previous two years. The battle of Stalingrad had caused losses that the Germans had not yet been able to replace. Therefore, the OKH recommended a plan that entailed troops holding most of the line while the armies in ACS delivered limited but powerful attacks. The proposed Operation Citadel offered the perfect option.

 

Although he accepted the OKH's advice about an offensive against the Kursk bulge, Hitler did not immediately abandon the idea of a more extensive summer campaign. He entertained a series of operations, such as Habicht and Panther, that called for attacks designed to eliminate the Soviet presence in the industrial area of the River Donetz. Hitler eventually rejected these plans, as he decided that they would hinder the pursuit of Operation Citadel. He did, however, recognise the possibility of using Habicht and Panther for deceptive purposes to increase the chances of success at Kursk.

 

The principal strategic mission of Operation Citadel was the destruction of the Red Army's large force in the Kursk region. Once the Red Army had been destroyed, the German Army could then turn to the north and advance on Moscow from the south. One German army would concentrate its forces around Orel to the north of Kursk and attack southwards, and a second force would amass near Belgorod and move north against the Soviet forces positioned south of Kursk. When the two forces met, they "would have effectively cut off Soviet troops in the Kursk salient. To accomplish this, the German armies -would deliver powerful, concentric blows from the Orel and Belgorod regions. In doing so, they would eliminate enemy forces along the line of the River Oskol and further north. Following the destruction of the Soviets within the salient, the Germans would bring up fresh reserves, turn to the north-east and surround Moscow from the south and south-east, in conjunction with an attack on the city from the west.

 

According to the plan, Army Group Centre (AGC) and Army Group South (AGS) were to assemble their panzer forces on the flanks of the bulge by mid- April. As soon as rasputiza ended, they would launch a two-pronged assault to close off the bulge. Operations Order 6, issued on 15 April, informed the commanders of the armies implementing Citadel to be ready to launch the offensive on six days' notice, any time after 28 April. According to the order, the army groups involved had to complete their preparations in time to launch the offensive by the end of the month. The earliest date on which Citadel could begin was 3 May.

 

Once the German High Command had a plan, they had to make preparations. One of the most important aspects of the preparations was rebuilding the ground forces. The armies on the Eastern Front, however, needed more than manpower. They had suffered losses in tanks, vehicles, weapons, equipment and ammunition: the materials essential for waging war. None of these materials was easy to replace. As much as possible, the armies utilised captured weapons and equipment, but they were insufficient to replace the losses. In addition, using captured vehicles and equipment created the problem of finding replacement parts. Solving the supply problem fell to Albert Speer. With Hitler's ultimate decision to bring total war to Germany, Speer received the job of implementing it in industry. Speer's solution was to redirect industry to war production. In other words, Speer, as a representative of the government, demanded that factories produce larger quantities of the materials needed to pursue the war.

 

Government pressure resulted in the rise of production levels. German factories manufactured more than twice as many tanks and assault guns than they had produced a year earlier. The monthly production of rifles and machine pistols increased by almost 50 per cent, while that of machine guns and artillery pieces doubled. Along with increased production, industry felt the pressure to produce better tanks, artillery pieces and weapons of all types. Under Speer's direction, industry rose to the challenge. In 1943, soldiers fighting at Kursk had the MG42, a new light machine-gun that was better than any they had previously used. They also had the benefit of heavier anti-tank guns. Two new tanks — the Tiger and the Panther - rolled off the assembly lines and onto the battlefields in 1943. The Germans used the heavier Tiger tanks to form special battalions that were designed to lead attacks. Tigers, which had heavy armour and 88mm (3.46in) guns, performed well against the Soviet tanks. The Panther tank began to replace the older Mark IV models as the foundation of the panzer divisions. Its 75mm (2.95in) gun gave the Panther the ability to destroy other tanks. In addition to the Tiger and the Panther, the Germans utilised two other tanks at Kursk: the Panzer III and the Panzer IV. While the Panzer III was equipped with a 50mm (1.97in) anti-tank gun, the Panzer IV had a high-velocity 75mm (2.95in) gun. Both types of tanks had proven themselves on the battlefield. The Germans also produced various assault guns, such as 105mm (4.13in) Wespe (Wasp) and 150mm (5.90in) Hummel (Bumblebee) howitzers, which provided support for the infantry during the offensive. Another new weapon was the 88mm (3.45in) armed Ferdinand (or Elefant) tank destroyer, -which was to prove ineffective. However, although German factories produced more than they had in previous years, they still could not manufacture enough to replace obsolete weapons and battlefield casualties, and the better quality weapons had to be used in conjunction with older ones. Despite the improvements in weaponry and firepower, the Germans could not match what the Soviets brought to the battle, particularly in terms of tanks and artillery.

 

During the period January to March 1943, German casualties on the Eastern Front numbered 689,260, while only 370,700 soldiers joined the forces on the front line. The leaders of the OKH, who began to address the problem as early as January 1943, realised that replacements from Germany alone could not solve the problem, particularly if they hoped to launch another offensive in the summer. They straightened out the front by eliminating several small salients. The troops that held these areas received orders to transfer to the south. Furthermore, the OKH revised its treatment of training companies. After receiving only eight weeks of preparation, the training companies joined training battalions for an additional eight weeks of instruction. These battalions then joined reserve divisions and helped to maintain order in occupied territories while they continued their preparations for front-line duty. German divisions situated in the West received orders transferring them to the East. Many of the divisions that had been sent to France for rest and rehabilitation returned to the Eastern Front. Between December 1942 and June 1943, Hitler removed all but one combat-ready division from France; he sent the rest to the Soviet Union. In addition, the divisions that remained in France underwent changes. The Wehrmacht sent older conscripts to France to replace the younger men, who were reassigned to divisions on the Eastern Front.

 

The mainstay of the German defensive force was the infantry, while the panzer forces held the offensive power in the German Army. However, both the infantry and the panzer forces needed men and supplies. The infantry frequently replaced the panzer and motorised divisions on the front line while these formations "were refitted with men, weapons and equipment. By May 1943, the Wehrmacht's efforts to resolve its manpower problems resulted in the availability of 9.5 million men for all fronts. Consequently, the Wehrmacht would reorganise and rehabilitate its depleted forces. Despite the Wehrmacht's efforts, however, many of the divisions participating in the summer offensive at Kursk remained under-strength. Many contained only six battalions, instead of the intended nine.

 

Several factors prevented the divisions from regaining their full strength. The high rate of casualties suffered by German armies in the spring of 1943 greatly exceeded the amount of reserves available to replace them. Instead of agreeing to combine divisions to increase their strength, Hitler dictated the creation of new divisions. The number of divisions available for battle remained more important to the Führer than their quality or combat strength. Consequently, the Wehrmacht had to find other ways, such as reorganisation, to enhance the capabilities of the divisions on the Eastern Front.

 

As the reorganisation progressed and the OKH prepared for Operation Citadel, the Germans fortified airfields and elevated positions on the Eastern Front, including those at Orel, Belgorod, Kharkov, Briansk, and Poltava. According to the OKH plan, Army Group Centre (AGO would be responsible for the attack against the northern part of the Kursk bulge. Under Field Marshal Günther von Kluge's direction, the AGC would concentrate 2nd Panzer Army, commanded by Colonel General Rudolf Schmidt, and 9th Army, by Colonel General Walter Model, near Orel, north of the bulge. These forces would be opposite the Soviets' Western, Briansk and Central fronts. The 2nd Panzer Army, which included the LV, LIII and XXXV Army Corps, would establish a defensive position along the Kirov-Zmievka Front. The three corps of the 2nd Panzer Army each contained at least four infantry divisions, and the LIII Army Corps one panzergrenadier division.

 

The 9th Army consisted of five corps: the XXIII and XX Army Corps and the XXXXI, XXXXVI and XXXXVII Panzer Corps. Only one of the two infantry divisions in the XXIII Army Corps was at full strength with nine battalions. Three of the four divisions in the XXXXI and XXXXVI Panzer Corps were infantry divisions. The two corps had only one panzer division each. Unlike the other panzer corps, the XXXXVII Panzer Corps consisted of three panzer divisions. The 9th Army had 1450 tanks and assault guns to be utilised for the offensive. In addition, the Supreme High Command held 90 Ferdinand assault guns and 150 Tiger tanks in reserve.

In World War 2, Hitler and Stalin, two of the most brutal dictators ever, commanded total control and led murderous terror regimes, in which fear of extreme punishment made it almost impossible to criticize or even to offer unfavorable advice, or even to awake the dictator late at night in case of emergency. In such regimes, one man makes all key decisions, and too many lesser decisions, and it's almost impossible to change his mind before or after he makes a major mistake. Here are some examples.

• In the invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941, instead of focusing on the objective of destroying the Russian army and taking Moscow before winter, Hitler diverted to other directions which caused significant delays, and re-focused in the direction of Moscow only in September, when he realized that winter was too close, and indeed it was too late, and it cost him the entire war. His Generals argued a lot against this mistake, but in vain.
• In the invasion of Russia, German propaganda directed at the Russian population presented the invasion as an opportunity for them to liberate themselves from Stalin's terribly cruel regime. Stalin's regime was indeed monstrous, but Hitler's strict directive to the German forces to use "maximum cruelty" (based on his racist ideology), quickly made it clear to the Russian people that no matter how bad Stalin was, the Germans were much worse, and it forced them to fight back one of the toughest wars ever. Hitler could wait with the cruelty until after the victory, but he was too eager.
• In 1940 Hitler missed two major opportunities to defeat Britain when it was weakest. In June, when allied defences in France and Belgium collapsed, he ordered his tanks not to attack the British force of 338,000 soldiers besieged on the beach at Dunkirk. He never explained this decision, but it is believed that he quietly accepted Goering's request to let "his" bombers destroy them from above (Goering was both Hitler's political deputy and commander of the Air Force). So the most powerful units of the German army had to idly watch from short distance as the core of the British army was allowed to escape from a hopeless situation. Three months later, in the peak of the Battle of Britain, when the German Air Force was getting close to breaking the smaller British Air Force, Hitler changed the objective of the German Air Force from defeating the British Air Force to killing the people of London in an air bombardment campaign. The result was that the British Air Force could then recover, keep fighting effectively, and win the battle, keeping Britain from invasion, and denying Hitler victory in the West.
• In 1941, Stalin received a stream of information from military intelligence and spies, that Germany is going to invade Russia, as Hitler promised since the 1920s. After discussions, Stalin decided that the information was inconclusive and perhaps deliberate disinformation, and decided that there will be no invasion. As the invasion came nearer, the stream of information indicating invasion intensified, but then Stalin forbid his advisors from further disturbing him with it. Anyone who still suggested that there might be a German invasion, risked execution. Fear was such that when the invasion started, no one dared to wakeup Stalin and tell him about it, until Zhukov, the deputy supreme commander, told Stalin's bodyguards that he takes responsibility for awakening the dictator and telling him the bad news.
• Hitler had a powerful and aggressive ally, Japan. He knew that Japan was considering attacking either to the North (they had an undeclared border war with Russia then in the Far East), or to the South (against South East Asia and the US). He didn't bother to try to coordinate his invasion of Russia with Japan or even inform it. If he did, Japan could stay at war with Russia for 8 more months, and that alone was enough to keep large Russian forces in the Far East until the German army advanced all the way to Moscow by December 1941. Instead, the uninformed Japan signed a non-aggression pact with Russia just two month before Hitler invaded it, and as a result, when the exhausted and frozen German invaders reached Moscow, and thought that Russia had no more reserves, they were massively attacked by fresh Russian units which were transferred from the Japanese border in the Far East.
• Both Hitler and Stalin refused to allow retreats, as a matter of principle and regardless of the military situation. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers in each side died in vain because they were not allowed to retreat when was necessary. Russia almost lost the war because of that in 1941, and Hitler's army suffered horrible losses because of that, mainly in the winter of 1942 and in Stalingrad a year later.
• Hitler, as supreme commander, also made himself commander of the German army since the end of 1941, and later spent most of his time acting as commander of the eastern front, obviously neglecting his other roles. Churchill and Stalin replaced Generals with other Generals, but Hitler, considering himself a military genius, decided to do a General's job by himself. He also dismissed some of his best Generals mostly because they argued with him. Only in July 1944, when losing in all fronts, he appointed the formerly dismissed General Guderian, one of Germany's greatest military talents, to commander of the army, but then he ignored his good advice, with obvious consequences.

By Uri Noy

MARK ROLFE

Full-scale development of the LaG-5, as the aircraft was now designated, began, and simultaneously problems arose concerning the initiation of the production process. Especially difficult to build were the first ten aircraft, assembled early in June 1942, which were manufactured in dreadful haste, with numerous errors. While it is normal practice to make parts from drawings, this time, on the contrary, final drawings were sometimes made from the parts. At the same time the tooling was being prepared and the process of producing new components was being mastered.

 

Aircraft Plant No.21 handled the task well. The transition to the modified fighter was effected almost without any reduction in the delivery rate to the air force. Following delivery of the first fully operational LaG-5 on 20th June 1942, the Gorkii workers turned out 37 more by the end of the month. In August the plant surpassed the production rate of all the previous months, 148 LaGG-3s being added to 145 new LaG-5s.

 

Series produced aircraft were considerably inferior to the prototype in speed, being some 24.8 to 31 mph (40 to 50km/h) slower. On the one hand this is understandable, as the LaGG-3 M-82 prototype lacked the radio antenna, bomb carriers and leading edge slats fitted to production aircraft. But there were other contributory causes, particularly insufficiently tight cowlings. Work carried out by Professor V Polinovsky with the workers of the design bureau of Plant No.21 enabled the openings to be found and eliminated.

 

Series built aircraft were sent to war, and the LaG-5's combat performance was proved in the 49th Red Banner Fighter Air Regiment of the 1st Air Army. In the unit's first 17 battles 16 enemy aircraft were shot down at a cost of ten of its own, five pilots being lost. Command believed that the heavy losses occurred because the new aircraft had not been fully mastered and, as a consequence, its operational qualities were not used to full advantage. Pilots noted that, owing to the machine's high weight and insufficient control surface balance, it made more demands upon flying technique than the LaGG-3 and Yak-1. At the same time, however, the LaG-5 had an advantage over fighters with liquid-cooled engines, as its double-row radial protected its pilot from frontal attacks. Aircraft survivability increased noticeably as a consequence. Three fighters returned to their airfield despite pierced inlet nozzles, exhaust pipes and rocker box covers.

 

The involvement of LaG-5s of the 287th Fighter Air Division, commanded by Colonel S Danilov, Hero of the Soviet Union, in the Battle of Stalingrad was a severe test for the aircraft. Fierce fighting took place over the Volga, and the Luftwaffe was stronger than ever before. The division experienced its first combats on 20th August 1942 with 57 LaG-5s, of which two-thirds were combat capable. Four regiments of the division were to have 80 fighters on strength, but a great many deficiencies prevented this. Serious accidents occurred; one fighter crashed during take-off, and two more collided while taxying owing to the pilots' poor view. During the first three flying days the LaGs shot down eight German fighters and three bombers. Seven were lost, including three to 'friendly' anti-aircraft fire.

 

Subsequently, the division pilots were more successful. There were repeated observations of attacks against enemy bombers, of which 57 were destroyed within a month, but the division's own losses were severe.

 

Based on experience gained during combat, the pilots of the 27th Fighter Air Regiment, 287th Fighter Air Division, concluded that their fighters were inferior to Bf109F-4s and, especially, 'G-2s in speed and vertical manoeuvrability. They reported: 'We have to engage only in defensive combat actions. The enemy is superior in altitude and, therefore, has a more favourable position from which to attack.'

 

Hitherto, it has often been stated in Soviet and other historical accounts that the La-5 (the designation assigned to the fighter in early September 1942) had passed its service tests during the Stalingrad battle in splendid fashion. In reality, this advanced fighter still had to overcome some 'growing pains'.

 

This was proved by state tests of the La-5 Series 4 at the NII WS during September and October 1942. At a flying weight of 7,4071b (3,360kg) the aircraft attained a maximum speed at ground level of 316mph (509km/h) at its normal power rating, 332.4mph (535 km/h) at its augmented rating and 360.4mph (580km/h) at the service ceiling of 20,500ft (6,250m) The Soviet-made M-82 family of engines - derived from the US-designed Wright R-1820 Cyclone - had an augmented power rating only at the first supercharger speed). The aircraft climbed to 16,400ft (5,000m) in 6.0 minutes at normal power rating and in 5.7 minutes with augmentation. Its armament was similar to that of the prototype. Horizontal manoeuvrability was slightly improved, but in the vertical plane it was decreased. Many defects in design and manufacture had not been corrected.

 

In combat Soviet pilots flew the La-5 with the canopy open, the cowling side flaps fully open and the tailwheel down, and this reduced its speed by another 18.6 to 24.8mph (30 to 40km/h). As a result, on 25th September 1942 the State Defence Committee issued an edict requiring that the La-5 be lightened, and that its performance and operational characteristics be improved.

 

The industry produced 1,129 La-5s during the second half of 1942, and these saw use during the counter attack by Soviet troops near Stalingrad. Of 289 La-5s in service with fighter aviation, the majority, 180 aircraft, were assigned to the forces of the Supreme Command Headquarters Reserve. The Soviet Command was preparing for a general winter offensive, and was building up reserves to place in support. One of these strong formations became the 2nd Mixed Air Corps under Hero of the Soviet Union Major-General I Yeryomenko, the two fighter divisions of which had five regiments (the 13th, 181st, 239th, 437th and 3rd Guards) equipped with the improved La-5. The new aircraft proved to be 11 to 12.4mph (18 to 20km/h) faster than the fighter which had passed the state tests at the NII WS in September and October 1942.

 

When the 2nd Mixed Air Corps, with more than 300 first class combat aircraft, was used to reinforce the 8th Air Army, the latter had only 160 serviceable aircraft. The 2nd Mixed Air Corps, reliably protecting and supporting the counter offensive by troops along the lines of advance, flew over 8,000 missions and shot down 353 enemy aircraft from 19th November 1942 to 2nd February 1943.

 

Progress made in combat activities by the Air Corps aviators in co-operation with joint forces during offensive operations on the Stalingrad and Southern fronts were noted by the ground forces Command. General Rodion Malinovsky, Commander of the 2nd Guards Army (later Defence Minister), wrote:

'The active warfare of the fighter units of the 2nd Mixed Air Corps [of which 80% of its aircraft were La-5s], by covering and supporting combat formations of Army troops, actually helped to protect the army from enemy air attacks. Pilots displayed courage, heroism and valour in the battlefield. With appearance of the Air Corps fighters the hostile aircraft avoided battle.

Generally speaking, the Soviets followed a gradual approach in tank design, modifying a proven design rather than starting from scratch.

The Soviet Union produced a large number of tank designs in the period between the two world wars. Early Russian experiments with AFVs in World War I had been limited to armored cars, such as the Austin Putilov. Based on a British chassis, it had entered service early in World War I. Lacking the industrial base of the other major military powers, the Russians concentrated in the postwar period on light tanks of simple design. Their first tanks were a few British and French models captured by the Bolshevik forces (known as the Reds) from their opponents (the Whites) during the Russian Civil War. The first Russian-built tank appeared in August 1920. It weighed some 15,700 pounds and had armor up to 16mm thick.

 

With no tank design experience of their own, the Russians came to rely on the Germans in this regard. The new Bolshevik government of Russia and Weimar Germany found themselves at odds with the Western powers after World War I, and in 1922 at Rapallo the two governments normalized relations. Following this the two states undertook a clandestine military collaboration that included a German- Soviet tank-testing facility at Kazan in the Soviet Union. This gave the Germans an opportunity to carry out tank development in violation of the Versailles treaty, and the Soviets gained access to German technological and design developments.

 

Although its designers had their own plans, the Soviet Union, in order to take advantage of new developments abroad, purchased a number of prototype tanks from other countries, including the Vickers tanks from Britain and Christie designs from the United States. The Vickers 6-Ton was the license-built Soviet T-26A. The T-26 of 1931 appeared in A and B versions. The A version, designed for infantry support, had twin turrets. The first production model mounted one 7.62mm machine gun in each turret. A follow-on mounted first a 27mm gun and then a 37mm gun in the right turret. The T-26A weighed some 19,000 pounds and had a crew of three. Powered by an 88-hp gasoline engine, it had a maximum speed of 22 mph. It had maximum 15mm armor protection.

 

The single-turret T-26B version was intended as a mechanized cavalry AFV and mounted a high-velocity gun. The initial model mounted a single 37mm gun; follow-on models mounted a 45mm main gun. Despite their obsolescence, Soviet T-26 tanks fought in the early battles on the Eastern Front during World War II.

 

The Soviet Union also purchased the light Vickers/Carden-Loyd tankette that the British abandoned. The Soviets enlarged it and put it into production in 1934. Some 1,200 were made as the T-37 light amphibious reconnaissance tank. The T-37 employed the Vickers hull and suspension married to a turret of Soviet design. A small propeller at the rear of the tank pushed it through water. Weighing some 7,100 pounds and capable of being air-lifted beneath a bomber, it had a 40-hp engine and could reach 21 mph on the road. It mounted a single 7.62mm machine gun and had only 10mm armor.

 

An improved T-37 appeared in the T-38, produced beginning in 1936. Basically the T-37 in terms of armament and armor, it had an improved engine, transmission, and suspension. The T-38 remained in service until 1942.

 

The final tank in this immediate series of light amphibians was the T-40. Quite different in appearance from its predecessors, the T- 40’s hull incorporated buoyancy tanks and had an upswept bow front similar to the later PT-76. It also had a small, sloped turret and was propelled in water by means of a small propeller. The T-40S version was simply a light tank without the amphibian feature. The T- 40 weighed some 12,300 pounds and had a two-man crew. It was armed with two machine guns, or a 20mm cannon and one machine gun. It had an 85-hp engine and was capable of 38 mph. The T-40 influenced the later T-60 and T-70 light tanks, the latter serving into the Cold War.

 

The U.S. Christie designs and French tanks introduced a sprung bogie suspension system in place of a rigid system. This enabled increased speed without sacrificing armor or requiring an increase in the size of the power plant. This appealed to Soviet designers, and they copied the Christie M-1931 in their BT series of fast tanks (“BT” standing for bystrochodny tankovy, literally “fast tank”). The Soviet BT-1 was an exact reproduction of the Christie. The BT-1 weighed some 20,000 pounds, had a crew of three, and had top speeds of 65 mph on wheels and 40 mph on tracks. It mounted two machine guns and had maximum 13mm armor protection.

 

Soon the Soviet Union was producing large numbers of BT tanks. The follow-on BT-2 was essentially the same hull as the BT-1 but with a new turret and a 37mm main gun and one machine gun. It was still in service in World War II. The BT-3, introduced in 1934, was essentially the BT-2 but with solid-disk road wheels instead of spoked wheels and a 45mm main gun instead of the 37mm.

 

The BT-5 incorporated a number of improvements, chiefly in its lightweight 350-hp gasoline engine, originally an aircraft design. Entering production in 1935, the tank itself weighed some 25,300 pounds, had a crew of three, maximum 13mm armor, and could reach 40 mph on tracks. The BT-5 was armed with a 45mm main gun and one machine gun. It formed the basis of Soviet armored formations of the late 1930s. It was in fact superior in almost all performance characteristics to the German PzKpfw I, which mounted only two machine guns. The two tanks came up against one another in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939.

 

The follow-on BT-7 of 1937 was essentially an improved BT-5 incorporating sloped armor. The BT-7 was heavier and slower than the BT-5, reflecting the race between guns and armor and increasing concern about the lethality of antitank guns. Weighing some 30,600 pounds and crewed by three men, it utilized a new engine and had increased fuel capacity. Its two-man turret continued the 45mm main-gun armament. Armor thickness was a maximum 22mm.

BT-1S MEDIUM TANK Final development of the BT series, this vehicle was built as a prototype only and was based on the BT-7M but was given sloped side armour as well as the sloping glacis. It retained the conical turret of the BT-7-2 and had removable side skirts. This was an important development vehicle in the evolution of the T-34 tank and was the first Soviet tank with all-sloped armour 15.6tons; crew 3; 45mm gun plus MG; armour 6-30mm; engine (diesel) 500hp; 40mph; 18.98ft x 7.5ft x 7.5ft.

 

Following experience gained in the Spanish Civil War, the BT-7’s armor was increased, and it received a new engine. The resulting BT-7M medium tank, also known as the BT-8, was produced only in limited numbers. The hull was modified and included a new fullwidth, well-sloped front glacis plate instead of the faired nose of the earlier BT series. The BT-7M also mounted a 76mm gun and two machine guns.

 

BT-7 tanks played a key role in the Soviet victory against the Japanese in the Battle of Nomonhan/Khalkhin Gol during May–September 1939. BT variants included command tanks, bridge-laying tanks, and a few flamethrower tanks. The BT-7 was certainly the most important Soviet tank in September 1939.

 

The final BT-series tank, the BT-1S, appeared in prototype only. Employing sloping side armor and glacis, the BT-1S also had removable side skirts. The first Soviet tank with all-sloping armor, it was an important step forward to the T-34.

 

The first indigenous Soviet medium tank design, the T-28, incorporated multiple turrets and was intended for an independent breakthrough role. Inspired by the Vickers A6 (its suspension was a clear copy) and German Grosstraktor designs, it grew out of the 1932 Red Army mechanization plan and was first produced by the Leningrad Kirov Plant. Intended for an attack role, the T-28 had a central main gun turret and two machine-gun turrets in front and to either side. The T-28 weighed 28,560 pounds, had a six-man crew, and was powered by a 500-hp engine and had a road speed of 23 mph. It had only 30mm maximum armor protection. The prototype mounted a 45mm gun, but production vehicles had a 76.2mm low-velocity main gun and two machine guns. Combat experience with the T-28 led to changes. Armor was increased on the C version to 80mm for the hull front and turret. Some T-28s substituted a low-velocity 45mm gun in the right front turret for the machine gun normally carried there. The T-28 had a poor combat record, however.

 

The Soviets also came up with a number of heavy tanks. Indeed, from the early 1930s Soviet heavy tank design was dominated by multiturret “land battleships,” many of which saw service in the 1939–1940 Winter War with Finland and even into the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union. Among these was the T-35 heavy tank with five turrets. Weighing some 110,200 pounds, the T- 35 had a crew of 11 and was powered by a 500-hp engine that gave it a speed of nearly 19 mph. It had only maximum 30mm armor protection, however. The T-35 mounted a 76mm gun, two 45mm guns, and six machine guns.

 

The Soviet experimental SMK (Sergius Mironovitch Kirov) heavy tank (with two turrets, one superimposed), which never went into production, was even larger. Weighing 58 tons, it had a 500-hp engine, a crew of seven, and 60mm armor, double that of the T-35. It was capable of 15 mph. Armament consisted of a 76mm gun, a 45mm gun, and three machine guns. Although these huge machines proved no match for the more nimble German tanks and artillery in 1941, the turrets, guns, and suspension systems developed for them did find their way into the KV series of heavy tanks.

 

Ultimately the strain on their production facilities forced the Soviets to decide between a few monster tanks or more numerous smaller ones. They opted for continuation of the BT series and one heavy tank, the KV-1. The Soviets and the Germans recognized what the British and Americans did not: at least some of the tanks in a nation’s armor inventory needed to mount heavier guns capable of firing shells in order to engage and destroy enemy tanks. Both Germany and the Soviet Union settled on the 75mm (2.9-inch) gun or 76mm (3-inch) gun as their chief heavy weapon; the biggest tank gun in most other national armies was a 47mm (1.85-inch) gun or smaller.

 

In the late 1930s the Soviet Union, not Germany, was the nation most interested in massive armor formations. It also possessed by far the largest number of armored fighting vehicles of any nation. In June 1941 the Soviet Union had 23,140 tanks (10,394 in the West), whereas the invading Germans had only about 6,000. Besides the advantage in numbers, the Soviets also had some of the best tanks in the world. During the war the Soviet Union built more tanks than any other power; these included a wide range of AFVs, from light to heavy tanks.

 

At the beginning of World War II the Soviets possessed a large number of their medium BT-series tanks, chiefly BT-5s and BT-7s. These and the Soviet T-26s were superior in armor, firepower, and maneuverability to the German light PzKpfw Marks III and IV and could destroy any German tank. The Russian T-34 medium introduced in 1941 and KV-1 heavy tank introduced in 1940 both mounted the 76.2mm (3-inch) gun and were superior to the PzKpfws III and IV and every other German tank in 1941.

These men are Russian officers in the ROA, the Russian Liberation Army (In Russian: Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Armiya). They are a part of captured Russian soldiers who joined the Germans and their Allies in the struggle against Bolshevism. The officer second from the left is General Vlasov. The ROA consisted of two divisions under the command of General Vlasov and its popular name was Vlasov's army.

By 1944 defeat stared Germany in the face. Goebbels's propaganda machine did its best to counter the deterioration of morale, especially emphasizing the bleak prospects with which the "unconditional surrender" slogan confronted the German people. On July 20 a few army officers and government officials attempted to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime, but the plot miscarried and merely resulted in the liquidation of the chief non-Nazis anywhere near the summit of power.

 

Opportunely for Goebbels came Allied publication of lists of "war criminals," the mass proscription of the German General Staff, and the approval of the "Morgenthau Plan," which envisaged the destruction of German industry and the conversion of all Germany into "a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in character," at the second Quebec conference in September 1944. Goebbels declared, "It hardly matters whether the Bolshevists want to destroy the Reich in one fashion and the Anglo-Saxons propose to do it in another." Doubtless the Morgenthau Plan did much to confuse those Germans who might be thinking of surrendering to the West while holding out against Stalin,, and thus Stalin could only profit by its dissemination by the U.S. and Britain.

 

At virtually the same moment that the Allies were endorsing the Morgenthau Plan at Quebec, the Nazi regime turned in desperation to a weapon which, if used earlier, might indeed have had great effect on the outcome of the war, but what the Nazis did with it in 1944 was too little and much too late. General Vlasov, who had been captured two years earlier, was to be transformed from a pawn of Nazi propaganda into the leader of a real Soviet anti-Stalinite army and government.

 

Vlasov, who was born in 1900, the son of a peasant family of Nizhnii Novgorod, had risen in Red Army ranks. A Party member since 1930, he had been Soviet military adviser to Chiang Kai-shek in 1938-1939, decorated in 1940, and in the autumn of 1941 one of the chief army commanders in the defense of Moscow. Apparently he possessed great personal magnetism, integrity, and ability. Not at all the opportunist and Nazi hireling he was accused of being, Vlasov "stressed his nationalism and strove to preserve the independence of the Movement," writes the most recent Investigator. Of the most influential men who joined his cause, probably the ablest was the brilliant but mysterious Milenty Zykov, who said he had been on the staff of Izvestiia under Bukharin and for a time had been exiled by Stalin. When captured he claimed to be serving as a battalion commissar, but it was suspected that he was much more.

 

By the end of 1942 Captain Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt of the German army propaganda section was planning to establish a Russian National Committee led by Vlasov at Smolensk. The plan was vetoed from above, but in December the formation of the committee was proclaimed on German soil Instead. Vlasov published a statement of his aims, and he was allowed to tour occupied Soviet areas, meeting a considerable popular response. In April 1943 an anti-Bolshevik conference of Soviet prisoners opposed to Stalin's regime was held in Brest-Litovsk. After Vlasov declared that if successful he would grant Ukraine and the Caucasus self-determination, Rosenberg was persuaded to support the committee. However, in June 1943 Hitler ordered that Vlasov was to be kept out of the occupation zone, and that the movement was to be confined to propaganda—that is, promises which Hitler could ignore later—across the lines to Soviet-held territory.

 

During 1943 Vlasov's circle, under the protection of Strik-Strikfeldt's section at Dabendorf just outside Berlin, was allowed to carry on remarkably free discussions about a future non-Communist government for Russia and to publish two newspapers in Russian, one for Soviet war prisoners and another for the Osttruppen. The political center of gravity at Dabendorf fluctuated between the more socialist-inclined entourage of Zykov and the more authoritarian-minded group close to the emigre anti-Soviet organization, N.T.S. (Natsionalno-Trudovoi Soiuz or National Tollers' Union). Of course political arguments among Soviet emigres were nothing new; what was new was the hope of imminent action, utilizing the five million Soviet nationals in Germany, to overthrow Stalin—either with Hitler's support or, if he should fall, perhaps in conjunction with the Western Allies. Despite arguments, a fair degree of harmony was maintained among the Russians at Dabendorf. Especially noteworthy was the extent to which Vlasov and his followers succeeded in preventing themselves from being compromised by Nazi Ideology and in maintaining the integrity of their own effort to win Russian freedom.

 

Until 1944, however, the Vlasov circle was confined to discussion and publication. Although the phrase, "Russian Liberation Army," and Its Russian abbreviation, ROA (for Russkaia Osvoboditel'naia Armiia), were much used in propaganda— with Hitler's approval—there was in fact no such army. "ROA" was only a shoulder patch which the Osttruppen, scattered in small units throughout the Nazi army, were permitted to wear. In the summer of 1944 the ablest Intellectual of the Vlasov group, Zykov, was abducted and almost certainly murdered forthwith by the SS.

 

Nevertheless it was Himmler, chief of the SS, who not long afterward achieved the reversal of Nazi policy toward Vlasov. In a meeting with Vlasov in mid-September 1944, Himmler agreed to the formation of a Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Komitet Osvobozhdeniia Narodov Rossii or K.O.N.R.), which would have the potentiality of a government, and an actual army. It appears that Hitler consented to Himmler's new policy chiefly because his suspicion of other Nazi officials who opposed it was by 1944 greater than his fear of arming enemy nationals—a fear which, it must be said, was justified from the Nazi standpoint. The concrete results of Himmler's decision were meager, largely because the Russians could not, amid the disintegration which overtook the Nazi system during the last months of the war, obtain the material aid they needed to implement their plans.

 

However, in November 1944 in Prague the K.O.N.R. was officially established at a meeting which issued the so-called "Prague Manifesto." This document, declaring that the irruption of the Red armies into Eastern Europe revealed more clearly than ever the Soviet "aim to strengthen still more the mastery of Stalin's tyranny over the peoples of the USSR, and to establish it all over the world," stated the goals of the K.O.N.R. to be the overthrow of the Communist regime and the "creation of a new free People's political system without Bolsheviks and exploiters." It proclaimed recognition of the "equality of all peoples of Russia" and their right of self-determination as well as the intention of ending forced labor and the collective farms and of achieving real civil liberties and social justice. If such a document had been widely disseminated two or three years earlier and given some substance in Nazi occupation policy, the results might have been important or even decisive; coming in 1944, it had no observable effect on the Soviet peoples.

 

The Prague meeting did stimulate certain Nazi officials to make efforts to put the minorities into the picture with political committees and armies. A year earlier the Nazis had finally organized a Ukrainian SS division which bore the name "Galicia," but although it fought hard and well at the battle of Brody, on the Rovno-Lvov road, in July 1944, when it was finally overrun there, it dispersed to join Ukrainian partisan forces behind Red lines. In October an SS official, Dr. Fritz Arlt, attempted to secure the consent of the Ukrainian nationalist leaders to the formation of a Ukrainian national committee. To avoid being overshadowed by Vlasov, Bandera and Melnyk agreed to the setting up of such a committee, nominally headed by General Paul Shandruk. Melnyk protested the Prague Manifesto, but many Ukrainians nevertheless joined the Vlasov movement, along with representatives of other minorities.

 

In January 1945 the formation of the Armed Forces of the K.O.N.R. was announced; however, only two divisions were actually activated and mobilized. The First Division, under the command of a Ukrainian, General S. K. Buniachenko, was committed in April on the front near Frankfurt on the Oder, but the unit refused to fight under existing circumstances, and amid the Nazi military collapse moved south toward Czechoslovakia. At the call of the Czech resistance leaders in Prague, the division moved into the city and on May 7, with Czech aid, captured it from the Nazis.

 

However, in the Europe of the spring of 1945 there was no place for an anti-Soviet Russian army. The generals, including Vlasov, were turned over to the Soviet command by American and British forces, with or without authorization to do so. In February 1946 the remainder of the army was handed over by U.S. authorities without warning to Soviet repatriation officers at Plattling, Bavaria. In August Pravda announced the execution of Vlasov and his fellow officers, describing them as "agents of German intelligence" and failing to inform the Russian people that they had organized a movement to overthrow Stalin.

Hitler, on 2 September he issued an order that when the city was taken the entire male population was to be liquidated and all the females deported. Like Leningrad and Moscow, Hitler wanted Stalingrad to be erased from the face of the earth.

 

But, before that final solution could be imposed on the city, the Germans had to capture it. The first problem they faced, as Stephen Walsh points out (2000, p.52), was that as they were unable to employ their favourite tactic of the Kesselschlacht – the battle of encirclement. Stalingrad was a long, very narrow city that stretched for some 30–40 miles along the western bank of the Volga. Little development had spilled over to the east bank because the Volga was too broad, up to a mile wide at some points. Stalingrad was too extensive to be easily enveloped by German forces who were already over-extended and at the end of very long supply lines, and who would be subject to strong opposition from Soviet divisions protecting the city’s flanks along the river’s banks. On the other hand, the city’s narrowness (never more than 4 or 5 miles wide) invited a direct frontal assault with the aim of breaking through to the riverbank across a broad front.

 

An alternative tactic, much canvassed after the event, would have been to attack from the north and south along the Volga with the aim of taking control of the riverfront and isolating the defending Soviet forces within the city. But attacking on such narrow fronts would have had its own problems and would have been fiercely contested by the Soviets, who well understood the importance of control of the river bank, the lifeline for their armies in Stalingrad. Besides, the Germans expected to take Stalingrad quickly, if not easily, whatever method they adopted, and they almost succeeded in doing so.

 

Stalingrad was a city of three main sections. In the south was the old town, which bordered on the city’s railway stations and the central landing stage river dock area. In the central section was a modern city centre with wide boulevards, department stores, civic buildings and public amenities. The north of the city was dominated by three huge factories along the river front: the Dzerzhinskii Tractor factory, which had been converted to tank production; the Barrikady ordnance works; and the Krasnii Oktyabr (Red October) metal plant. Important features of the city from a military point of view were:

(a) the high banks of the Tsaritsa River, which flowed into the Volga and bisected the southern section of the city;

(b) Mamayev Kurgan – an ancient burial mound and, at over 300 feet, one of the highest hills in the city, with commanding views of the centre and north of Stalingrad and across the Volga; and

(c) the defensive shelter offered by the high banks and bluffs of the west side of the Volga, which rose to 1000 feet in places.

The main German attack force was Paulus’s 6th Army – the strongest field army in the Wehrmacht – conqueror of Poland, France and the Ukraine. Supporting the 6th Army was the 4th Panzer Army, making a total of 21 enemy divisions attacking in the Stalingrad region, although many units were under strength by the time they had fought their way to the Don and Volga. According to Soviet figures, 13 of these enemy divisions (170,000 men, 500 tanks and 3000 artillery pieces) were deployed on the 40-mile front of Stalingrad and its environs. Air support was provided by the Luftwaffe’s 8th Air Corps, which had about 1000 planes. Facing the Germans was a Soviet force of 90,000, with 2000 artillery pieces, 120 tanks and just under 400 planes.

 

The same imbalance of forces prevailed on the narrower front of the city of Stalingrad itself. On its 25-mile front the Soviet 62nd Army – the main defending force in the city – was 54,000 strong (as against 100,000 Germans), had 900 artillery pieces (against 2000), and 110 tanks (facing 500). The size and composition of both armies fluctuated, depending on casualties and replacements, but those kind of numbers and force ratios prevailed throughout most of the battle that was to follow.

 

The two main commanders were Paulus, and, on the Soviet side, General Vasilii Chuikov, who took charge of the 62nd army on 12 September. Paulus is a controversial figure (as losing generals often are) but the consensus is that he was a highly-competent but unimaginative staff officer, an operational technician rather than a field commander, at least not one to be involved in a Rattenkrieg (rats’ war) as the German soldiers in Stalingrad called the battle. Chuikov, on the other hand, may have lacked operational refinement but he was a tough and determined fighter, independent, outspoken and abrasive – and universally acclaimed as the ideal commander for a brutal and wearying city scrap. The contrast between the two is summed up by the fact that throughout the battle Chuikov was in the thick of it, often under direct fire, his command headquarters pushed back to the water’s edge of the Volga, while Paulus (not unreasonably) stayed away from the combat zone and commanded his troops from the rear.

 

Despite their superior numbers and firepower, the Germans were being drawn into a battle that would involve them in a very different kind of fighting from that with which they were familiar. Much of Stalingrad already lay in ruins following extensive aerial and artillery bombardment. The rubble would obstruct concentrated, mobile attacks by combined air, armour and infantry, while providing cover for defenders. Though out-numbered and out-gunned the defenders would have many advantages in the close combat of the innumerable small battles fought among the city’s ruins.

 

General Hans Doerr, who fought at Stalingrad, was the author of one of the earliest German studies of the battle: Campaign to Stalingrad (Der Feldzug nach Stalingrad, 1955). In a celebrated passage he set the scene for what was to come:

‘The battle for the industrial area of Stalingrad, which began in the middle of September, can be described as “trench” or “fortress” warfare. The time for conducting large-scale operations was gone for ever; from the wide expanses of the steppeland, the war moved into the jagged gullies of the Volga hills with their copses and ravines, into the factory area of Stalingrad, spread out over uneven, pitted, rugged country, covered with iron, concrete and stone buildings. The mile, as a measure of distance, was replaced by the yard . . .

For every house, workshop, water-tower, railway embankment, wall, cellar and every pile of ruins, a bitter battle was waged . . . The distance between the enemy’s army and ours was as small as it could possibly be. Despite the concentrated activity of aircraft and artillery, it was impossible to break out of the area of close fighting . . .’ (Chuikov, 1963, p.135)

A 91-year-old former RAF pilot who flew Spitfires in the Second World War was told he could not sit in one of the fighters at a museum because it was too dangerous.

After 1943 Pz Kw III variants were equipped with 5 mm thick side plates, known as aprons or skirt armour to increase protection against hits from anti-tank rifles and hollow-charge ammunition. The aprons, which fitted on to longitudinal rails on both sides of the vehicle, were removable and could be fitted around the turret (Army Technical Pamphlet 1943, No 433). The width of the vehicle, which was first shown on 19th March 1943 in Rugenwalde, was 341 cm. For tank units on the Eastern Front a wider track was issued in 1944 (Army Technical Pamphlet 1944, No 256), the so-called "Ostkette" (literally Eastern track). This was intended to increase the cross-country capabilities of the Pz Kw III and its variants in snow and on soft going. This was simply a makeshift, for the track with its extension on one side could only be used with safety in flat country. The width with the Ostkette fitted was 326 cm.

 

Due to the introduction of the upgunned and uparmoured Panzer IV, the Panzer III was, after the Battle of Kursk, relegated to secondary roles, such as training, and it was replaced as the main German medium tank by the Panzer IV and the Panther. The Panzer III chassis was the basis for the turretless Sturmgeschütz III assault gun, one of the most successful self-propelled guns of the war, and the single most-produced German armored fighting vehicle design of World War II.

 

The Panzer III was used in the campaigns against Poland, France, the Soviet Union and in North Africa. A handful were still in use in Normandy, Anzio, Finland and in Operation Market Garden in 1944.

While Sturmbannführer Weidinger and his regiment were fighting their way towards and into Prague, another unit of the Division, the replacement battalion of Deutschland' Regiment, was holding out in one of the city's suburbs. A replacement battalion is, by definition, one which sends out drafts of men to units in the field. Most of those replacements were recruits but their numbers were leavened by experienced soldiers, convalescents, determined to return to the old mob'. The recruits and veterans of Deutschland's replacement battalions were quartered in the Rusin barracks, some five or six kilometres outside the Czech capital and adjacent to the aerodrome.

 

In May 1945 the unit, with an establishment of eight companies, had a total strength of some 1,300 men. The demands upon the battalion's clothing and weapons stores, to outfit earlier drafts, had been such that by March 1945 there were insufficient uniforms to clothe all the soldiers. More seriously, a shortage of weapons meant that the recruits could be armed only with carbines and 30 rounds of ammunition.

 

Rumours of Czech uprisings, together with an increase in partisan activity, were not unexpected by Sturmbannführer Oettinger, the battalion commander, and his concern must have deepened with the news that General Buntyaschenkov's Division, about 18,000 strong, had switched allegiance. That formation, part of General Vlassov's army, which had been raised to serve on the side of the Germans, had now changed sides and had made common caused with the Czechs against the Germans. On 2 May Oettinger's battalion was ordered to block the roads to the south-west of Prague so as to halt the advance of the turncoat Russians. Before undertaking this task the Sturmbannführer decided to concentrate inside Rusin airfield all those units that had been billeted in the neighbouring villages. That done, the next step was to provide fresh meat in the event of a siege and he ordered cattle to be driven on to the aerodrome. The third step was to organize its defence so as to create a firm base for the battalion s efforts. This accomplished he was ready to march his men out on their blocking mission - but events overtook him. Insurrection broke out in Prague and spread throughout the whole of Czechoslovakia. The under-armed replacement battalion now had to hold and defend the aerodrome against Czech partisans as well as against the renegade Russian Division.

The Luftwaffe colonel commanding the airfield learned of the uprising, entered into negotiations with the Czechs and agreed that partisans she aid take over guard on the airfield. Oettinger replaced him with another Luftwaffe officer, a highly decorated lieutenant-colonel, who was as determined to defend the area as was the SS commander. Oettinger deployed two hundred of his men to undertake the defence of the airfield. He also increased his battalion's fire-power with several 88mm guns and a four-barrelled antiaircraft cannon. With its defences in order and with an adequate supply of food, the replacement battalion stood to arms awaiting the onslaught of the Russians and the partisans.

 

The SS did not have long to wait. Within a day Buntyaschenkov's men reached the airfield perimeter and opened fire with mortars and machineguns. Their snipers soon dominated the 500-yard-wide strip of ground between the barracks and the airfield. Despite the danger Oettinger made frequent trips across the strip to keep up his men's spirits. Morale suffered a loss when the telephone lines between the airfield and Puckler, the senior commander of the SS in Prague, were cut, leaving the airfield's wireless set as the garrison's only remaining link with the outside world.

 

Over that set the Luftwaffe officer learned of Germany's imminent capitulation and informed Oettinger, advising him of the High Command directive that all German units were to make best possible speed so as to reach the American lines. The two commanders decided that their units would make separate attempts to break through the Vlassov troops to reach the west. The Luftwaffe had transport which the SS did not. Outside the Russian ring the Luftwaffe had a great vehicle park of coaches and omnibuses which would carry them to safety. To help evacuate the replacement battalion s wounded, the Luftwaffe commander promised that the coaches would be brought back and turned over to the SS. Oettinger then set about organizing his unit s breakout. Chief among his problems was the need to find sufficient volunteers to form a rearguard which would hold the enemy at bay while the main body of the battalion escaped. This problem was resolved when Obersturmführer Wagner, commanding the battalion's Convalescent Company, volunteered his 120 experienced soldiers so that the desperate, almost suicidal task would not fall upon untrained recruits. Oettinger accepted Wagner’s offer but stressed that once the main body of the battalion had broken through the enemy ring, Wagner was to bring his group out.

 

In the early hours of the morning of 8 May, the replacement battalion set out to smash its way through to reach Laun. At the head of the column was a self-propelled vehicle mounting an anti-aircraft heavy machine-gun. Behind this came the lorries carrying the men of the grenadier companies, armed with just their carbines and a few rounds of ammunition. Dispersed among the companies were the badly wounded men laid on horse-drawn carts. Another self-propelled vehicle mounting a heavy machine-gun brought up the rear of the column. When Wagner realized that the main body of the battalion was nearing the Russian positions he and the rearguard fired off one last volley and stormed forward in a charge. They smashed through the encircling ring and by striking southwards hoped to draw the attention of the Cossack troops away from the main breakout attempt. It was unnecessary. The mass of the battalion broke through without incident and sped along the road to Saaz.

 

At about 10.00 hours Oettinger's battalion reached the area where it had been arranged that the Luftwaffe coaches would be waiting. Neither transports nor Luftwaffe personnel were there and the commander decided to waste no time waiting for them to arrive. Every minute was precious for the battalion was halted in what was now enemy territory. The column set out again and after hours of travelling finally reached Zlonice where it was decided to make camp for the night. Hardly had the tired grenadiers settled down when they were awakened again. The time was just after midnight and the report which had been brought in by dispatch rider announced the end of the war and the urgent need to gain the American lines at Pilsen. The column reformed ready to continue the march, but reports which came in from motorcycle reconnaissance patrols told that the roads to Saaz were blocked by Russian tanks. The battalion could now no longer move as a single, cohesive body but would have to fragment into small groups which would filter through the enemy line. At Oettinger's final conference group leaders were selected. Then, parties each about 120-strong, began their escape attempts, plunging into the dark forests, moving noiselessly and skirting paths or crossroads on which the enemy would have guards.

 

Little has been learned of what subsequently happened to these groups, nor are the names known of all the men who constituted them. What is known for certain is that the greatest number did not escape. Whether as groups or as individuals most were captured, although there were others who fell in battle against Russians units or partisan detachments, firing their last rounds of ammunition as they made a hopeless charge against an enemy superior in numbers and fire power. In a sense those who fell in battle were the fortunate ones, for the end of many of those who surrendered was a brutal one at the hands of a murder squad. Of those held in a barn at Zlonice, for example, only seven managed to get away. The remainder were beaten to death or shot. After making one escape Oettinger and his group were recaptured near Saaz and held in a gymnasium from which only he and an NCO managed to break out. All the other prisoners-of-war held in the gymnasium were slaughtered.

 

What happened to the rearguard under Wagner is not known. It is assumed that he and his men fell in battle fighting against the numerically superior Russian division, but there is nothing known for certain for nothing more has ever been heard of them.

 

All that is certain is that the replacement battalion of Deutschland' Regiment died in the pine woods of Bohemia.

A briefing just prior to operations. Left to right: SS-Obersturmbannführer Meyer (commander, SS-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 1); a platoon leader in SS Panzer- Regiment 1; SS-Standartenführer- Dr. Besuden (division surgeon); SS-Obersturmbannführer Witt (commander, SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 1); and SS-Sturmbannführer Wünsche (commander, I. / SS-Panzer-Regiment 1).

Russia, February 1943. Panzermeyer and Sepp Dietrich in Kharkov

 

Our advance came to a halt in a brickworks just to the north of Kharkov. Just in the nick of time I noticed a good half-dozen enemy tanks in the gardens on both sides of the road. To our left a tank crew was busily engaged in removing the camouflage covering from a T-34. Machine-gun fire drove them back. The firing brought the remaining tank crews out of the houses. No one had counted on a German advance reaching that point. Despite that, it was starting to get dangerous for us. Stoll was just able to jump into another vehicle as his own had stopped. I saw the driver disappear into a haystack.

 

We had to go back. The first tanks moved into firing positions. We had to get out of there right away or we would come under fire from the Soviet tanks. We had advanced more than seven kilometers to the south and increased the Soviets' uncertainty. A Russian major with a stomach wound sat behind me. He really wanted to return with us. I admired the man; during the whole return trip I didn’t hear a word from him about his pain. Dr. Gatternig put the first dressing on his wound.

 

When we returned we found a mass of prisoners at Bolschaja Danilowka guarded by just a few soldiers. They were happy with their lot. Not a single one attempted to escape.

 

By midnight a considerable part of the Kampfgruppe was still missing but, during the hours of darkness, they closed up in dribs and drabs. The whole unit had assembled by 0500 hours and the entire Kampfgruppe was ready for operations.

 

As soon as the first gray light of the new day appeared we advanced once again in the direction of Kharkov. This time, however, it was more slowly. We rolled south, carefully scanning the terrain round us. Far to the right we could see attacking Soviets employed against the airfield. They were attacking Witt's regiment. In front of us we spotted attacking Soviet infantry that was laying as if nailed to the ground by machine-gun fire. We soon arrived at the brickworks again and found Stoll's driver uninjured. Bruno Preger had spent the night sleeping in the haystack.

 

The enemy tanks were still in firing positions. Five T-34s fell victim to our tanks and were soon ablaze. A Panzer IV received a direct hit and burst completely asunder. The same enemy tank that had destroyed it also scored a direct hit on my own vehicle from a range of less than fifty meters. It immediately killed my driver, Max Wertinger. The leader of our signals platoon, SS-Obersturmführer Heinz Westphal, also fell to the round; Helmut Belke was wounded and I lay unhurt beneath Max Wertinger's body. The Russian tank succeeded in escaping.

 

We fought our way forward, house to house. An enemy antitank crew was killed by a falling lamp post. Our tanks dominated the battlefield. Late in the afternoon of 11 March we were standing in the eastern part of Kharkov, having reached the road to Staryj.

 

At the moment of our victory a dangerous crisis surfaced. Our tanks had only a small amount of fuel left and could no longer be employed. They were assembled in a large graveyard and formed a "hedgehog" defensive position, creating a safe bulwark in the middle of Kharkov. From there we sent our feelers out along the Kharkov-Tschugujew road and attempted to block the Soviet's main line of retreat.

 

I had not had a report from the 2./SS-Aufklarungs-Abteilung 1 for some hours; it had been cutoff at the Kharkov Creek by enemy forces. Kompanie Bremer was fighting for its life and Olboetter was repelling enemy counterattacks from the east. In the cemetery we were having to defend ourselves against Soviets trying to break out. By the onset of darkness SS-Hauptscharführer Bruckmann had succeeded in bringing up fuel vehicles but, at the same time, he reported the road had been sealed off by enemy forces. (A few days later they were eliminated by elements of the 3. SS-Panzer-Division "Totenkopf'.)

 

Witt's regiment had broken into the town with a surprise attack from the north; it punched through to Red Square in heavy street fighting and had set up defensive positions for the night.

 

On 12 March the Kampfgruppe advanced several blocks and then blocked the road to Tschugujew once and for all. It was then the Soviet's turn to attack us. They wanted to overwhelm us. We were pressed together in a small area. Two platoons of Kompanie Weiser were cut off on the first floor of a school and defended themselves desperately against the Russian assault troops who had forced their way into the ground floor. An immediate counterattack under the command of Wünsche contributed to the elimination of the Russian assault troops. Once again the entire Kampfgruppe had been surrounded and was struggling in desperate fighting. A circle of burning buildings pinpointed our position in that sector of the city. By the onset of night I no longer had much hope that we could hold out until the following morning. The enemy was within hand-grenade range. While moving through our position, we suddenly spotted a tank that had pulled up right against the school building. We were less than twenty meters away from it when the tank commander leaned out of the turret trying to establish contact with soldiers on the ground. He died from Weiser's pistol round. The tank pulled away on rattling tracks with the top half of its dead commander's body hanging out of the turret.

 

On the night of 12 March the 2. SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Das Reich" broke through the antitank ditch on the western outskirts of Kharkov and thus opened the way through to the city. The division arrived at the main train station on 12 March.

 

The enemy tried to break out of the encirclement en masse. He managed a stubborn resistance and dispatched new forces from northeast of the city in a relief attack. Jochen Peiper beat his way through to us with two SPW, thus establishing contact with the remainder of the division. His escort SPW was knocked out by a T-34, but he succeeded in bringing the men out to safety. We fought grimly and determinedly for each house until 14 March. By about 1800 hours we had captured the last two sectors of the city in the east and southeast. The tractor works fell on 15 March.

 

That same morning the 3. SS-Panzer-Division "Totenkopf' reached and blocked the narrows at Tschugujew after successful armor engagements to the north of Rogan. This blocking position had to be held over the next few days against strong enemy attempts to break out as well as counterattacks from the east. We were successful in either eliminating or capturing the bulk of the enclosed enemy forces and capturing all of his equipment.

 

With that, the decisive counterattack against the Russian winter offensive was completed, contact reestablished between the sectors of Heeresgruppe Slid, a considerable part of the Russian offensive strength destroyed and the rest badly beaten. In the pursuit against the enemy withdrawing to the east and north in the following days, the banks of the Donez were taken and, rounding out the victories of the SS-Panzer-Korps, Jochen Peiper captured Belgorod on 18 March. It was there that the linkup was established with Panzer-Grenadier-Division "Grossdeutschland". "Grossdeutschland" had been advancing from the west. In the past few days it had destroyed 150 Soviet tanks in heavy armor fighting.

 

The battle of Kharkov had been concluded victoriously despite considerable losses. In the great battle between the Donez and the Dnjepr the German grenadier had emerged victorious over the eastern hordes. Shortly before the summer offensive, I had to permanently take leave of the faithful grenadiers whom I had led for many years. I will never forget the departure from my comrades. I was ordered to report to the Armor School and then transferred to the 12. SS-Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend."