Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1943-1945: Red Steamroller

Heeresgruppe Nord retreats from Leningrad, 14 January–1 April 1944

For nearly three years, Heeresgruppe Nord had been holding its positions outside the city of Leningrad, with little change in the opposing lines. Although the Leningrad and Volkhov Fronts had opened a land corridor to Leningrad with Operation Iskra in January 1943, a year later the Germans were still within artillery range of the city. Generalfeldmarschall Georg Wilhelm von Küchler commanded Heeresgruppe Nord from his headquarters in Pskov and he had two armies: AOK 18 holding the lines around Leningrad and AOK 16 deployed between Novgorod and Velikiye Luki. Given the static nature of warfare on the Leningrad sector, the OKH had stripped Generaloberst Georg Lindemann’s 18.Armee (AOK 18) down to the bone during 1943. Several Luftwaffe Feld-Divisionen were sent to this relatively quiet sector, which allowed Heer infantry divisions to be sent southward and AOK 18 received far fewer personnel replacements than other German armies. At the start of 1944, Lindemann had 20 divisions holding a 280km-long front. In terms of armour, AOK 18 had relied upon the Tigers from s. Pz.Abt. 502 to repel enemy attacks and this unit enjoyed a considerable amount of success outside Leningrad. Oberleutnant Otto Carius was one of the Tiger ‘aces’ who made a name for himself in this Stellungskrieg (positional warfare).

However, on 6 October 1943, the Soviet Kalinin Front launched a massive attack near the boundary of Heeresgruppe Nord and Heeresgruppe Mitte. The 3rd and 4th Shock Armies, with a total of 16 rifle divisions and 300 tanks, attacked the II.Luftwaffen-Feldkorps near Nevel and rapidly achieved a major breakthrough. Both AOK 16 and PzAOK 3 were compelled to commit all their reserves to this endangered sector, to prevent the Kalinin Front from driving a wedge between the two German army groups. Von Küchler had to send his only mobile reserve, the Tigers of s.Pz.Abt.502, to support a counter-attack intended to retake Nevel and crush the Soviet penetration. The fighting around Nevel dragged on indecisively for months, although the Germans claimed that 1,450 Soviet tanks were destroyed in this sector over the course of the battle.

Despite the distraction of the Nevel breakthrough, by late 1943 the OKH assessed that the Soviet Leningrad Front would eventually attack Heeresgruppe Nord’s AOK 18 in force, so Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner’s III.SS-Panzerkorps headquarters was sent to join Lindemann’s command in ealy December 1943, along with 11.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland and 4.SS-Panzergrenadier-Brigade Nederland. Despite their grandiloquent titles, these recently-raised Waffen-SS formations were of mediocre quality, consisting primarily of Volksdeutsche, and poorly equipped. The Nordland’s SS-Panzer Battalion 11 was supposed to be equipped with Panther tanks, but most proved defective and the battalion was still unready for combat in January 1944.^{1} A few of the immobilized Panthers were sent to the front and dug in as strongpoints. Instead, the Nordland had SS-Sturmgeschutz Battalion 11 with 42 StuG III and the Nederland brigade had a battery with 10 StuG III. In order to increase its anti-tank capabilities, AOK 18 had also formed Panzer-Zerstorer-Bataillone 477 and 478, each equipped with 20 of the new 8.8cm Panzerschreck rocket launchers. As a contingency plan, Heeresgruppe Nord began construction of the Panther Line on 7 September 1943; the line was intended to run from Narva, behind Lake Peipus to Pskov and Ostrov. By the end of December, some anti-tank ditches and fieldworks were in place, but the bulk of the fortification effort would not be completed until March 1944.^{2}

The main problem for AOK 18 was the Oranienbaum salient, which the Red Army had held since late 1941. This heavily-fortified salient was supplied by sea and forced AOK 18 to maintain at least a corps-size formation to contain it. Steiner’s corps was assigned to defend the southern side of the Oranienbaum salient, to prevent a link-up between the Soviet forces in Leningrad and the enclave. Nordland would serve as a mobile reserve for this critical sector. However, von Küchler and Lindemann were not particularly concerned about the Oranienbaum salient, which had been a quiet sector for two years. Instead, von Küchler and Lindemann focused on repelling a Soviet breakout from Leningrad toward the Pulkovo Heights. Once again, the Germans were let down by their poor intelligence support, which failed to note a shift in Soviet intentions. General-leytenant Leonid A. Govorov, commander of the Leningrad Front, was resolved to end the German threat to the city and to destroy AOK 18. Instead of attacking from the east, as he had tried in all previous offensives in 1941–43, this time Govorov decided to make his main effort from the Oranienbaum salient.

General-leytenant Ivan F. Fediuninskiy, a protégé of Zhukov, was put in command of the 2nd Shock Army, which consisted of seven rifle divisions, two tank brigades and three tank regiments. Fediuninskiy’s strike force was quietly moved into the Oranienbaum salient in late December; not all of this could be concealed, but the Germans failed to appreciate this as the Soviet main effort. Instead, the Germans focused on General-polkovnik Ivan I. Maslennikov’s 42nd Army, which was outfitted with nine rifle divisions, two tank brigades, six tank regiments and two artillery divisions. Golikov’s preparations were meticulous, and for once the Red Army was allowed adequate time for preparation. On the morning of 14 January, Golikov attacked. Fediuninskiy’s artillery commenced a massive artillery bombardment against the 9. and 10.Luftwaffe-Feld-Divisionen on the eastern side of the salient. Two Soviet battleships supported the attack, with 305mm naval gunfire. After smashing their positions with over 100,000 rounds in 65 minutes, Fediuninskiy then attacked with five rifle divisions and two tank brigades. Contrary to expectations, the Luftwaffe troops put up a stout defence that prevented an immediate breakthrough and enabled Nordland to send some reinforcements. At the same time, Maslennikov distracted the German L Armeekorps with a massive bombardment, which kept Lindemann from committing his limited reserves against Fediuninskiy’s 2nd Shock Army. As night fell, Fediuninskiy committed a mobile group consisting of Polkovnik Aron Z. Oskotsky’s 152nd Tank Brigade and two tank regiments to begin pushing toward the road junction at Ropsha.

On the morning of 15 January, Maslennikov’s 42nd Army attacked the L Armeekorps after another lengthy artillery bombardment and quickly achieved a 4km-deep penetration on the Pulkovo Heights. The breakthrough was assisted by the 36th and 49th Guards Tank Regiments, each equipped with 21 Churchill tanks. Meanwhile, Fediuninskiy smashed the remnants of the two Luftwaffe divisions but mobile group Oskotsky was stopped by a counter-attack from Nordland before it could reach Ropsha. Lindemann was able to organize local counter-attacks on 16–17 January that temporarily slowed the two Soviet armies that were advancing toward each other. Nordland employed its assault guns and mobile artillery to strike at the flanks of the Soviet penetration, but could not seal it off. Maslennikov formed a mobile group with the 1st and 220th Tank Brigades, but these were stopped north of Krasnoye Selo. However after five days of battle, the German defence began to crumble and the Soviet armies surged toward Ropsha. On 19 January, the 2nd Shock Army and 42nd Army fought their way into Ropsha, which isolated a number of German units and forced Lindemann to retreat. Adding to von Küchler’s problems, Meretskov’s Volkhov Front launched an attack against AOK 16 which overran a Luftwaffe division at Novgorod and threatened to unhinge AOK 18’s right flank, as well. Lindemann’s centre was pierced and both flanks were in retreat.

Hitler ordered von Küchler and Lindemann to stand fast, as help was on the way. He promised the transfer of the 12.Panzer-Division from Heeresgruppe Mitte and Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle from France to reinforce AOK 18, but neither would arrive soon enough to prevent Golikov from completing his breakout. Instead, the only immediate help came from s.Pz. Abt.502, which sent its 3.Kompanie under Leutnant Herbert Meyer with 15 Tigers by rail on 19 January. By the time Meyer’s Tigers arrived at Gatchina on 20 January, the station was already under artillery fire and the lead elements of the 42nd Army were approaching. With the rest of the battalion still en route, Meyer’s Tigers were scooped up by a local commander who ordered him to advance northwest to assist elements of the L Armeekorps, which were under pressure from Soviet armour. With a platoon of four Tigers, Meyer promptly advanced in a movement to contact, completely ignorant of both the friendly and enemy situation. Advancing to the sound of gunfire, Meyer unexpectedly bumped into an enemy tank battalion with 20–30 tanks. The terrain around Leningrad is heavily wooded and the ensuing action must have occurred at short range; three of Meyer’s four Tigers were knocked out and abandoned. Meyer returned with his last Tiger to link up with the rest of his company north of Gatchina, assembling a blocking force on the main road to Leningrad. However, Meyer had no supporting infantry and when the 42nd Army came rolling down the highway the next morning, Kampfgruppe Meyer was quickly encircled. Although Meyer’s Tigers knocked out eight enemy tanks and six anti-tank guns, the situation was hopeless since fuel and ammunition were low. In desperation, Meyer committed suicide and all 11 of his Tigers were destroyed or captured.^{3} Without support, the Tiger was little more than a bunker.

With AOK 18’s front broken and the Soviets rolling inexorably toward the Luga River, von Küchler’s nerve cracked and he ordered both armies to retreat to the Panther Line, even though its fortifications were incomplete. Under heavy pressure, AOK 18 conducted a fighting retreat to the Luga River, while AOK 16 fell back about 30km. The remaining Tigers of s.Pz.Abt.502 assisted the AOK 18 in its withdrawal by turning to ambush the Soviet spearheads; on 25 January they claimed 41 Soviet tanks destroyed at Voyskovitsy, 5km southwest of Gatchina. However, German supply lines were disrupted by the retreat and resupply of fuel and ammunition became problematic. On 28 January, the Tigers made a brief stand at Volosovo while the infantry retreated to the Luga River. One lone Tiger was engaged by a battalion with 27 T-34s; despite having only three AP rounds and nine HE rounds, it managed to knock out seven T-34s and then fall back. Yet aside from the few remaining assault guns, Heeresgruppe Nord had almost no other armoured units to serve as a rearguard.

Von Küchler’s retreat order was unauthorized and Hitler immediately sacked von Küchler and decided to replace him with Generaloberst Walter Model, who had already made a name for himself as a steadfast commander. However, by the time that Model arrived in Pskov on 31 January, Heeresgruppe Nord was already in full retreat and Fediuninskiy’s 2nd Shock Army was on the outskirts of Kingisepp. Even worse, Model found that AOK 18 had barely 17,000 combat troops to hold the 115km-wide front on the Luga River, which was insufficient to repulse a determined offensive. Affecting a bold front, Model declared that Heeresgruppe Nord would employ Schild und Schwert (sword and shield) tactics to stop the Soviet steamroller. By this he meant limited tactical withdrawals to enable him to concentrate enough troops for local counter-attacks. Model ordered the establishment of large-scale stützpunkte at Narva and Luga, while combing out infantry replacements from Heeresgruppe Nord’s rear-area troops. He personally went to inspect the defences at Narva and decided to commit the remaining Tigers to reinforce Steiner’s III. SS-Panzerkorps’ defence, since the loss of Narva would fatally compromise the Panther Line.

Yet despite Model’s bravado, the Soviet steamroller kept right on coming, advancing up to 16km per day, overrunning Kingisepp on 1 February and then seizing bridgeheads over the Luga River. At Narva, Fediuninskiy’s 2nd Shock Army managed to cross the Narva River south of the fortress city, but was stopped by a fanatical defence by Gruppe Sponheimer. Other Soviet elements crossed the frozen Lake Peipus, but were quickly destroyed. Generalleutnant Erpo von Bodenhausen’s 12.Panzer-Division arrived by rail from Heeresgruppe Mitte and Model decided to use it in a Schild und Schwert effort to stop the 42nd Army on the Luga River. The 12.Panzer-Division had never been completely refitted from its losses in 1941 and could only field a single Panzer-Abteilung, equipped with a mix of Pz III and Pz IV tanks. In contrast, the Leningrad Front received additional armour for the breakout, included some of the new KV-85s and IS-1s. After a few failed counter-attacks, von Bodenhausen used his armour and Panzergrenadiers to slow the Soviet advance, but the 42nd Army still managed to capture Luga on 13 February. Any hope Model had for standing on the Luga were demolished when Popov’s 2nd Baltic Front joined the Soviet offensive on 16 February and its 1st Shock Army overran the AOK 16 position at Staraya Russa. With Hitler’s grudging acceptance, Model ordered all of Heeresgruppe Nord to retreat to the Panther Line. When the troops arrived at the designated positions, they were forced to dig fighting positions in the frozen, snow covered ground. One innovation that did help was the ‘trench plow,’ a large steel hoe that was towed behind a semi-track vehicle and used to rip open the ground.

Govorov focused most of his effort on Narva, hoping to capture the city and outflank the rest of the Panther Line. He decided to reinforce Fediuninskiy with the 8th and 47th Armies. General der Infanterie Otto Sponheimer commanded a mixed force of survivors at Narva, including the Nordland division, the Nederland brigade, four infantry divisions and s.Pz.Abt.502 (with 23 operational Tigers), as well as Estonian Waffen-SS troops and Luftwaffe troops. In early February, the Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle arrived to bolster his command.[41] Narva was a formidable defensive position, located on a narrow isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Peipus, surrounded by marshes and forests. The city itself was located on the west side of the Narva River, which effectively served as a wide moat. While the Nordland division moved into the city, Oberleutnant Otto Carius and four Tigers were left as a rearguard on the east side of the river to gain time for the Waffen-SS troops to fortify their position. Model promptly arrived at this exposed position and personally told Carius, ‘I am holding you personally responsible that no Russian tanks break through.’^{4} Once the Nordland was dug in, Carius’ Tigers were allowed to retreat across the river and the bridge was blown up.

Rather ambitiously, the Soviets attempted a double envelopment of Gruppe Sponheimer at Narva, with the 47th Army crossing the Narva River north of the city at Riigi and Siivertsi and the 8th Army crossing south of the city at Krivasso. In addition, on 13–14 February the Soviet Baltic Fleet landed a battalion of naval infantry behind German lines on the Gulf of Finland. Somehow, Sponheimer was able to scrape together just enough of a reserve to deal with each Soviet attack. Otto Carius’ Tigers played a major role in defending Narva, first sending three Tigers to crush the amphibious attack on 14 February. Next, several Tigers assisted the Nordland in battering the northern Soviet bridgeheads on 18 February, then shifted to deal with the southern threat. While the Soviets came close to encircling Narva, the Tigers prevented the pincers from shutting and kept a narrow lifeline open. Soviet tanks crossed the river, but not in sufficient numbers to overcome s. Pz. Abt. 502, which was reinforced with 17 new Tigers in late February.

On 1 March, the Soviet 59th Army began a major offensive from the Krivasso bridgehead which created a substantial lodgement south of Narva. However, the Nordland division finally destroyed the small bridgeheads north of Narva, which allowed the Germans to shift the Feldherrnhalle division to block this southern threat. On 6 March, the Soviets heavily bombed Narva, turning it into a pile of rubble, then attacked across the river with 2nd Shock Army. On 17 March, the 59th Army attacked from the south to sever the main east-west rail line, but three Tigers under Carius managed to hold the thinly-manned HKL and destroyed 14 T-34s and 1 KV-1, which halted the attack.^{5} Instead of overwhelming Carius’ small force, the Soviets attacked piecemeal, with only company-size groups of tanks supporting a battalion of infantry. Despite heavy casualties, the German defence held and after two weeks of heavy fighting the Soviets ceased their attacks.

As the Soviet offensive ebbed, the OKH decided to mount a major counter-attack to try and eliminate the 59th Army’s Krivasso bridgehead. It was a decidedly low-budget affair. Oberst Graf von Strachwitz was sent to Narva to lead a Panzerkampfgruppe formed from the remaining Tigers and a handful of Panthers and Pz IVs scraped up from repair depots. Elements of three infantry divisions were also committed to the effort. On 26 March, Strachwitz attacked and in six days he managed to demolish the western side of the Soviet bridgehead. The 59th Army had not expected a tank attack and failed to establish effective anti-tank defences. Strachwitz resumed the counter-offensive in early April and achieved more success until the spring thaw brought a halt to his mobile operations. The Soviets still maintained a toehold at Krivasso, but the threat to Narva was temporarily reduced. Strachwitz’s counter-offensive inflicted about 12,000 casualties on the 59th Army and brought the Soviet steamroller to a halt.

By early April, the situation along the Panther Line had stabilized for Heeresgruppe Nord. The defence of Narva was difficult and resource-consuming, but the fanatical defence of the city brought Govorov’s advance to a halt. The Soviets became too engrossed with taking Narva, rather than pressing hard at other sectors of the Heeresgruppe Nord front. Consequently, the rest of AOK 16 and AOK 18 were able to establish a new defensive line on the border of Estonia, although the army group lacked mobile reserves. As it was, the Leningrad Front came close to breaking Heeresgruppe Nord in February and it was the lack of large armoured mobile groups that reduced the scale of the Soviet victory. With all the tank armies committed to the Ukraine, Govorov and Meretskov had to make due with combining various tank brigades and regiments into ad hoc groups, which was little better than the Red Army tactics of 1941–42. For the Germans, it was equally unnerving to realize how little armoured support they had when a positional campaign transitioned to mobile warfare.

The Evisceration of Heeresgruppe Süd, January–March 1944

There was no pause in Vatutin’s offensive as January 1944 began and his troops succeeded in capturing Berdichev and Belaya Tserkov by 5 January. Vatutin had created a large gap between Heeresgruppe Süd and Heeresgruppe Mitte north of Korosten, into which Vatutin sent three infantry armies, but he had no tanks for exploitation in this sector. Rybalko’s 3 GTA was reduced to only 59 operational tanks by 8 January and was soon pulled out of the line to refit, leaving Katukov’s 1 TA to continue the advance.^{6} During the first 10 days of January 1944, Vatutin lost 314 tanks and then another 294 in the next ten days. A steady stream of tank replacements kept Vatutin’s armour advancing, but just barely. Meanwhile, Zhukov directed Vatutin and Konev toward a singular goal, which was a massive pincer effort to push back both PzAOK 1 and PzAOK 4 in order to encircle and destroy the German salient near Cherkassy. Recognizing that the front was collapsing, von Manstein pleaded with Hitler to allow him to pull back from the Dnepr in order to create a new front, but this was refused. Hitler regarded the propaganda value of holding part of the Dnepr line as more important than the military value of conserving his remaining forces. Unable to withdraw, von Manstein opted to quietly begin shifting parts of Hube’s PzAOK 1 westward to shore up his broken left flank, held by the remnants of Raus’ PzAOK 4. Von Manstein conducted these transfers without authorization from the OKH and knowing that Wöhler’s AOK 8 would be hard-pressed to hold the right flank.

While Vatutin pushed Katukov’s armour toward the main German supply base at Uman and von Manstein’s headquarters at Vinnitsa, Konev began his own offensive against east of Kirovograd on the morning of 5 January. While the 5 GA and 53 Army achieved some success, Hube was able to prevent Konev’s first-echelon forces from breaking through his front and deftly used 11.Panzer-Division to mount local counter-attacks. Easily frustrated, particularly when Zhukov was looking over his shoulder, Konev committed Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA to the attack only two hours after the operation had begun.^{7} Rotmistrov’s armour ran straight into a still solid German defence and lost 139 tanks on the first day. Eventually, Konev shifted Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA to a more favorable axis on the second day of the operation, but continued to misuse his armour. Hube was force to evacuate Kirovograd on 8 January, but managed to not only maintain a coherent front, but also to transfer some forces to reinforce Raus’ PzAOK 4. Indeed, Hube was so steadfast that he was given command authority over the VII and XXXXII Armeekorps holding the Korsun salient on the Dnepr. Like von Manstein, Hube pleaded to evacuate the salient, but was ignored. Throughout mid-January, Vatutin and Konev continued to grind forward, slowly overwhelming one German-held town after another. Katukov’s 1 TA enjoyed the most success, threatening to overrun both Uman and Vinnitsa.

Although he was on the ropes, von Manstein recognized that the Soviet advance was slowing due to a combination of casualties and supply difficulties. He believed that if he could cut off and destroy Katukov’s armoured spearheads, Vatutin’s offensive would cease. With great difficulty, von Manstein managed to assemble a considerable counter-attack force consisting of the LSSAH, 16.Panzer-Division and 101.Jager-Division under von Vormann’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps by 21 January. Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke’s LSSAH had 50 operational tanks and 27 assault guns left (including 1 Tiger, 22 Panthers, 25 Pz IV), but its two Panzergrendier Regiments had barely 30 per cent of their authorized strength. The 16.Panzer-Division was one of the strongest formations in PzAOK 4, with more than 60 operational tanks, including 38 Panthers and 24 Pz IV. As an experiment, von Manstein ordered the formation of Schwere Panzer-Regiment Bäke (34 Tigers and 46 Panthers), which was formed from s.Pz.Abt.503 and parts of 6.Panzer-Division; this was the first time that Tigers and Panthers had been integrated in the same unit. At 0600 hours on 24 January, von Vormann’s strike force launched a slashing attack into Katukov’s right flank east of Vinnitsa. Although Katukov was surprised by the appearance of over 200 German AFVs, he quickly shifted anti-tank guns into this sector and ordered his troops to emplace mines, which made German heavy tanks move cautiously. Due to the disruption of logistical bases, Schwere Panzer-Regiment Bäke ran out of ammunition on the second day of the operation and fuel shortages were also a recurring problem. Breith’s III Panzerkorps (6. and 17.Panzer-Divisionen) was added to the counter-offensive, now dubbed Operation Vatutin, which culminated with several small encirclents on 30 January. Von Manstein claimed to have killed or captured 13,500 Soviet troops and knocked out 701 tanks and self-propelled guns.^{8} Von Manstein’s claims were slightly exaggerated; Soviet records indicate that Vatutin’s entire front lost 513 tanks and 146 self-propelled guns during the last 10 days of January, suggesting that von Manstein’s counter-attack probably accounted for 300–400 enemy AFVs.^{9} Furthermore, none of Katukov’s brigade commanders from either the 8 GMC or 11 GTC were casualties during this period, which one would expect if the bulk of 1 TA had been destroyed. Schwere Panzer-Regiment Bäke claimed to have knocked out 267 tanks in return for the loss of three Tigers and four Panthers, a purported 38–1 kill ratio. In fact, the German claims were nonsense. Operation Vatutin managed to temporarily force 1 TA onto the defensive and inflicted heavy material losses, but von Manstein’s inflated claims were made in order to conceal the fact that his counter-stroke failed to alter the deteriorating situation.

While von Manstein was focused on Katukov, Vatutin was forming a new tank army for his next operation. On 20 January, General-leytenant Andrei G. Kravchenko took command of 6th Tank Army, comprised of Volkhov’s 5 MC and Alekseev’s 5 GTC; it was not a full-strength formation, totalling just 160 tanks and 50 self-propelled guns.^{10} Volkhov’s 5 MC had recently been reequipped with Lend-Lease M4A2 Sherman tanks.^{11} On 26 January, Vatutin attacked the German VII Armeekorps with the 40th Army but his main effort failed to achieve a breakthrough. Surprisingly, a supporting attack against the over-extended XXXXII Armeekorps achieved a minor breakthrough and Kravchenko sent a mobile group under General-major Mikhail I. Savelev from 5 MC to exploit the gap. Savelev’s mobile group consisted of the 233rd Tank Brigade (equipped with Sherman tanks), a regiment of Su-76, a motorized rifle battalion and an anti-tank battery.^{12} However, Kravchenko was unable to send the rest of the 5 MC after Savelev, since Vatutin was concerned by Breith’s counter-attack against 1 TA and ordered Kravchenko to send part of the corps to reinforce Katukov. Consequently, Kravchenko’s 6 TA was reduced to barely 100 tanks just as it was achieving a major success.

Meanwhile, Konev renewed his offensive against Wöhler’s AOK 8 on 25 January and overwhelmed the over-extended 389.Infanterie-Division, then quickly committed Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA (20 TC, 29 TC) with 323 tanks. Rotmistrov’s armoured wedge also forced the burnt-out 14.Panzer-Division to retreat. After 24 hours of fighting, Rotmistrov was able to squeeze the 20 TC and 29 TC through a gap in the German lines and they pushed west against negligible resistance. Wöhler mounted a quick counter-attack with the 11.Panzer-Division (15 tanks and 15 assault guns) which temporarily succeeded in severing the line of communications behind the two advancing Soviet tank corps, but lacked the strength to do any more.^{13} By 27 January, Rotmistrov’s armour was rapidly pushing west and close to linking up with Savelev’s mobile goup. The only hope to reverse this dangerous situation was Major Glässgen’s I.Pz.Rgt.26 which had only arrived from Germany two weeks before, and it was quickly attached to XXXXVII Panzerkorps to cut off Rotmistrov’s spearheads. Although the battalion had not yet seen combat, it already lost a dozen tanks disabled with mechanical problems and the 75km march to its assembly area cost it another Panther destroyed by engine fire and four broken down.^{14} Clearly, the ‘teething problems’ associated with Zitadelle were still not resolved.

At 0600 hours on 28 January, the I.Pz.Rgt.26 attacked northward with 61 Panthers to Kapitanovka to link up with Major von Siver’s Panthers from 11.Panzer-Division. In complete disregard for combined arms tactics, the attack was begun without infantry, artillery, air support or even reconnaissance, so Glässgen’s inexperienced Panther crews moved blindly into a meeting engagement with an enemy of unknown strength. As it turned out, Konev had moved strong anti-tank units into this sector and General-major Vasily I. Polozkov’s 18 TC was in the process of reopening the road. The German attack was a four-star fiasco, with the Panthers being engaged repeatedly in flank by anti-tank ambushes; Major Glässgen and two of his company commanders were killed, 10 Panthers were destroyed and 18 damaged. Another 16 Panthers broke-down from engine defects, leaving I.Pz.Rgt.26 with just 17 operational Panthers. While Polozkov’s 18 TC lost 29 T-34s in the action, he succeeded in reopening the road to Rotmistrov’s two tank corps that were driving west.^{15}

On 28 January, Podpolkovnik Ivan I. Proshin was pushing his 155th Tank Brigade forward as fast as possible, as the advance guard of 20 TC. By the afternoon, his lead tanks had reached the town of Zvenigorodka, which was a German supply base. After scattering rear area troops, Proshin secured the town and around 1800 hours the lead Sherman tanks from Savelev’s mobile group arrived, which created a link-up between 6 TA and 5 GTA.^{16} A total of 59,000 German troops from the VII and XXXXII Armeekorps were now isolated in the Korsun pocket, comprising SS-Wiking, four infantry divisions (57, 72, 88 and 389) and two Sturmgeschütz-Abteilungen (228, 239). The German forces within the Korsun pocket were quickly redeployed for all-around defence and were redesignated as Gruppe Stemmerman, after General der Artillerie Wilhelm Stemmermann, commander of XXXXII Armeekorps. Amazingly, Hitler refused to allow Gruppe Stemmermann to conduct a breakout and ordered the Luftwaffe to begin an airlift and von Manstein to mount a ground rescue operation. It was Stalingrad all over again, on a somewhat smaller scale. Von Manstein was determined not to repeat the mistakes of Stalingrad, but it would take several days to organize a relief effort and, in the meantime, he had to create a new frontline in the vacuum south of the Soviet encirclement. Both Konev and Vatutin began pushing infantry units into the corridor to hold the ring around Gruppe Stemmermann, while the 29 TC advanced to expand the ring before the Germans could rush units to the new front.

Von Vormann’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps was able to organize a small relief effort fairly quickly with 11.Panzer-Division, which had 22 Panthers, three Pz IV and 13 assault guns, but just 1,000 Panzergrenadiers. A small Kampfgruppe from 13.Panzer-Division could also participate. On the morning of 1 February, von Vormann attacked and his Panthers easily sliced through two Soviet rifle divisions which had not yet dug in. In six hours, 11.Panzer-Division advanced 31km over the frozen terrain and reached the Shpolka River at Iskrennoye, less than 20km from Gruppe Stemmermann. However, when the Panthers attempted to cross a bridge over the river it collapsed, bringing the advance to a halt. Von Vormann was able to bring up pioniers to build a bridge for his StuG-IIIs, but AOK 8 lacked material to build a 60-ton pontoon bridge for the Panthers. Hitler also intervened in von Vormann’s relief operation, ordering him to wait since he was transferring the 24.Panzer-Division (which only had 17 tanks and 14 StuG IIIs) from the Nikopol bridgehead to reinforce him. Since this division was nearly 300km away and had to move via its own tracks, this was a remarkably stupid idea that helped to delay XXXXVII Panzerkorps when it had a brief window of opportunity. Instead, Hitler should have helped von Vormann to get bridging material forward, but the Führer was not interested in pontoon bridges. Instead, von Vormann paused at Iskrennoye, which allowed the Soviets to move the 29 TC and 49th Rifle Corps to block any further advance. Exacerbating von Vormann’s problems, temperatures rose to 5 degrees C (41 degrees F) which caused the ground to thaw, reducing mobility. Although von Vormann would continue to try and advance toward Gruppe Stemmermann for the next two weeks, he achieved no further significant advances.

Meanwhile, von Manstein did not immediately cancel Operation Vatutin against Katukov’s 1 TA, but by 30 January he ordered Hube to transfer Breith’s III Panzerkorps to mount a second relief operation from the southwest, which was designated Operation Wanda. Due to the muddy roads caused by the thaw and the difficulty extracting armoured units from the ongoing battles, it took longer than expected to assemble Breith’s III Panzerkorps for Operation Wanda. Breith’s corps initially consisted of the 16. and 17.Panzer-Divisionen, Schwere Panzer-Regiment Bäke and s.Pz.Abt.506 with a total of 105 tanks (48 Panthers, 41 Pz IV and 16 Tigers) and 21 assault guns. On the morning of 4 February, both Panzer-Divisionen attacked side-by-side, with two infantry divisions in support. Although the Soviet 104th Rifle Corps put up tough resistance and mines hindered the German advance, Breith’s two Panzer-Divisionen were able to advance nearly 19km on the first day. Vatutin committed Kravchenko’s 6 TA and an anti-tank brigade to block Breith’s panzers on the Gniloy Tikich, which was normally a minor obstacle but now widened by rain and melting snow. By the second day of Wanda, Breith’s forces ran into Soviet armour and indecisive tank skirmishing cost both sides vehicles. Despite reinforcements from 1.Panzer-Division and LSSAH, Breith’s advance was brought to a halt for a week. The Soviets had learned that the way to halt a German armoured drive was to constantly attack both flanks of a salient, which forced the Germans to divert troops to prevent from being cut off. Although this cost Kravchenko’s 6 TA many of its tanks, Vatutin received regular replacements – unlike the Germans. Furthermore, the lack of engineer support made it difficult to get heavy tanks across the Gniloi Tikich and Bäke’s panzers ran out of ammunition and fuel by the second day of the operation. Breith blamed the mud for reducing his mobility, but this tended to be a standard German excuse whenever a poorly-planned operation began to unravel. In Russia and the Ukraine, there was always mud.

By 6 February, both German relief efforts had been halted, 35–40km short of the Korsun pocket. Unlike Stalingrad, Gruppe Stemmermann was in no danger of starving to death, but Soviet pressure on the pocket was inexorably squeezing the defenders and forcing them to consume their ammunition. By 10 February, it was clear that Gruppe Stemmermann could not simply wait for relief and had to take some measures to increase the odds of a link-up with either Breith’s or von Vormann’s forces. Stemmermann decided to reposition his best division, Wiking, to be prepared to attack toward III Panzerkorps at the appropriate moment. SS-Brigadeführer Otto Gille’s Wiking had about 20 operational tanks (Pz III/IV) and several assault guns, as well as 47 artillery pieces (including 9 Wespe and 3 Hummel).

Meanwhile, Breith’s III Panzerkorps was stuck in the mud south of the Gniloi Tikich. Recognizing that Vatutin had blocked his current axis of advance, he decided to regroup and attack eastward, where enemy defences were thinner. By this point, Breith had 140 tanks (incl. 80 Panthers and 12 Tigers) and 14 assault guns. On the morning of 11 February, Breith attacked with Bäke’s heavy tanks in the lead and advanced 8km in two hours. Within five hours, the Panthers had succeeded in capturing a bridge over the Gniloi Tikich at Frankovka. At this point, Breith decided to employ two schwerpunkte in his advance toward Gruppe Stemmermann: Kampfgruppe Bäke would advance northeast while Kampfgruppe Frank from 1. Panzer-Division (one battalion with 28 Panthers and one SPW battalion) would advance east to Lisyanka. With two spearheads advancing toward the pocket, Breith hoped to find weak spots in the Soviet defences. Frank succeeded in capturing Lisyanka in a night attack, before fuel shortages forced both him and Bäke to halt their advance. Both German spearheads were virtually out of fuel and had to waste the next day waiting for the supply units to catch up along the muddy roads.[42] One German supply column moving forward was shot up by Soviet units that had been bypassed in the rapid advance, indicating that Bäke’s lines of communication were not secure.

Vatutin always seemed to have another card up his sleeve and now he introduced General-leytenant Semyon I. Bogdanov’s 2nd Tank Army (3 TC, 16 TC, 11 GTB), which had been in the RVGK until a week before. Bogdanov moved four tank brigades directly into Breith’s path on 12 February, while the German spearheads were immobilized by lack of fuel. The German two-wheel drive Opel Blitz used by the supply echelons were virtually immobilized by the Ukrainian mud and proved to be the Achilles’ Heel of the relief effort. In addition, Kravchenko’s remaining armour and infantry from the 40th Army continued to attack Breith’s exposed flanks, which was a constant irritant. On 13 February, Breith finally had enough fuel to resume his advance and now von Manstein told him that it was ‘now, or never’ – he must reach Gruppe Stemmermann before it was crushed. Bäke advanced with 10 Tigers and 10 Panthers, followed by Kamfgruppe Frank from 1.Panzer-Division. Near the village of Dadushkovka, Bäke’s panzers ran into T-34s from Polkovnik Roman A. Lieberman’s 50th Tank Brigade (3 TC). One platoon of T-34s made the amateur mistake of trying to engage Tigers from a distance of 1,800 meters and paid for this ignorance in blood. However, the other T-34s were more cunning and remained in defilade positions near anti-tank guns, which forced the German panzers to get in much closer, where the T-34s could occasionally score. The tank battle lasted more than an hour, with the Germans claiming another Soviet tank brigade destroyed, but five Tigers and four Panthers were knocked out, leaving Bäke with just 10–11 functional tanks. Although Bäke managed to advance another 12km and reached Khizhintsy, he was still 10km from the pocket and once again out of fuel.

Konev’s forces captured the Korsun airfield on 13 February, abruptly terminating the Luftwaffe airlift. It was clear that Gruppe Stemmermann could only last a few more days. On 14 February, as a desperate expedient, Luftwaffe Ju-52s flew low over his tanks and dropped drums of petrol in the mud, most of which burst. Bäke received just enough fuel to make a small advance, but he could not reach the pocket and he was stopped by intense enemy resistance on Hill 239. That day, the thaw ended and it began to snow again, which hardened the ground. Kampfgruppe Bäke and Kampfgruppe Frank sparred with Bogdanov’s armour near Lisyanka, claiming another 19 T-34s from 5 GTC and some Shermans from 5 GMC, but four Tigers and three Panthers were damaged. With ammunition and fuel nearly exhausted and barely 20 tanks still operational, Breith’s relief effort ground to a halt at Lisyanka on 15 February. Vatutin simply ordered Bogdanov to place more tanks and anti-tank guns to bar any further advance, while the remainder of his forces and Konev’s reduced the pocket. One of the units that arrived to reinforce the 16 TC was Polkovnik Nikolai S. Grishin’s 13th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, equipped with 21 IS-1 (IS-85) heavy tanks, equipped with the same 85mm D-5T as the KV-85. These heavy tanks were committed into action on 15 February and unwisely attacked Kampfgruppe Bäke instead of sitting on the defence; the Panthers and Tigers knocked virtually all of them out. Following this incident, the GABTU resolved to upgrade the new IS-series heavy tanks to the 122mm gun.

Finally recognizing that relief would not arrive in time, Stemmermann resolved to conduct a breakout operation on the night of 16–17 February to reach III Panzerkorps. In order to gain a springboard for the breakout, Stemmermann launched a series of night attacks from 11–13 February which captured the towns of Shanderovka and Nova Buda from the besieging 27th Army. Attacking at night wearing winter camouflage uniforms, the German infantry caught the Soviet trops by surprise and succeeded in getting a bit closer to III Panzerkorps at Lisyanka. During the day, Konev attempted to retake these towns, but Wiking’s last tanks and assault guns, led by SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Köller, fought them off and defended the breakout assembly areas.^{17}

Kampfgruppe Frank and Kampfgruppe Bäke made one last push to Oktaybr on 16 February, destroying part of another Soviet tank brigade but losing more Tigers and Panthers in the process. Frank’s Panthers encountered KV-85s from the 13th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment, attacked to the 16 TC, which was an unpleasant surprise.^{18} Gruppe Stemmermann’s lines were 7km away. Stemmermann’s breakout began at 2300 hours on 16 February and initially went quiet well, as infantry from the 72.Infanterie-Division infiltrated through the Soviet cordon, which was held by elements of 5 GTA. However, the Soviets soon detected the breakout and all hell broke loose as the night sky was lit by flares and artillery fire. Wiking tried to break out with 11,500 troops, seven tanks and three assault guns, but was engaged by Soviet tanks and anti-tank guns. Although the combat troops maintained some semblance of discipline, many of the support troops panicked and scattered, or caused traffic jams with the vehicle columns. Stemmermann was killed in the stampede and Soviet cavalry appeared out of the woods to cut up the rear echelons. Thousands of German troops reached the Gniloi Tikich River on foot and were forced to cross this obstacle, which ended up with hundreds drowned or frozen to death. Soviet tanks fired into the horde at the river’s edge, causing further panic. In the end, 35,199 Germans managed to flee the Korsun pocket and reach III Panzerkorps, but about 19,000 were killed or captured.^{19} Gruppe Stemmermann abandoned all its artillery and vehicles in the pocket, including 20 tanks and 30 assault guns. Wiking lost over 3,000 men in the breakout and took six months to refit.

The relief effort cost the German Panzer-Divisionen involved dearly, with III. Panzerkorps and XXXXVII Panzerkorps suffering a total of over 4,000 casualties. Breith’s III. Panzerkorps lost 156 tanks and assault guns during the relief effort and was left with only 60 tanks and six StuG IIIs operational. Approximately 56 per cent of the losses were due to mechanical defects, particularly with the problematic Panther (at least 15 of 37 lost in III Panzerkorps suffered engine problems and were destroyed). Indeed, on 29 February 171 of the 187 Panthers in PzAOK 1 were under repair. Von Vormann’s XXXXVII Panzerkorps had lost about 80 tanks and assault guns and was left with 32 operational tanks and 27 assault guns. The combination of muddy roads and limited recovery vehicles meant that when the relief forces retreated to new defensive lines, many non-operational tanks were blown up rather than allowed to fall into enemy hands. In order to save part of five trapped divisions, von Manstein had expended his armoured reserves.

At one stroke, Vatutin and Konev had removed two corps from Heeresgrupe Süd’s order of battle and incapacitated most of the German armour in the Ukraine, which made it virtually impossible for von Manstein to hold any kind of frontline. In the aftermath of Korsun, von Manstein was primarily focused on shoring up the left flank of Heeresgruppe Süd held by PzAOK 4, which was holding a 240km front with 12 depleted divisions. The gap between Heeresgruppe Süd’s left flank and Heeresgruppe Mitte’s right flank was only screened by the XIII Armeekorps, which failed to prevent Vatutin’s 13th Army from seizing the cities of Rovno and Lutsk on 5 February. Indeed, there was little from preventing Vatutin from driving due west into Poland. However, von Manstein’s right flank was also on the verge of collapse. The transfer of the 24.Panzer-Division to support the Korsun relief effort had weakened the German defence of the Nikopol bridgehead at a critical moment. On 2 February, Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front attacked the left flank of Hollidt’s AOK 6 east of Krivoi Rog and quickly achieved a breakthrough that the Germans lacked the armoured reserves to block. Within 24 hours, the Soviets captured the vital rail junction at Apostolovo and threatened to isolate the IV and XVII Armeekorps in the Nikopol bridgehead. Hollidt was forced to abandon Nikpol on 7 February and retreat westward to avoid encirclement. Even when the 24. Panzer-Division was returned to Hollidt, it had lost most of its tanks and 55 per cent of its trucks in the fruitless march north to join the Korsun relief effort.

Meanwhile, the Soviets were able to replenish the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts within two weeks of the end of the Korsun battle and Zhukov was eager to press on and finish off Heeresgruppe Sud before it could be reinforced. However, Vatutin was badly wounded by Ukraininan partisans on 28 February and died six weeks later; Zhukov temporarily took command of the front. The loss of Vatutin was a serious blow to the Red Army since he had become one of its most skilled practitioners of combined arms warfare. In comparison, Konev and most of the other front commanders tended to rely more on firepower than manoeuvre or deception. Zhukov immediately began preparing for the next round and using his clout with the Stavka, he managed to acquire the 4th Tank Army (6 GMC, 10 GTC) from the RVGK; this formation was under the command of General-leytenant Vasily M. Badanov, who had led the Tatsinskaya Raid in December 1942. In addition, Zhukov was able to get replacements for the 1 TA and 3 GTA, although neither could be brought up to full strength.

On 4 March, Zhukov’s 1st Ukrainian Front attacked the boundary between PzAOK 4 and PzAOK 1, while Konev’s 2nd Ukraininan Front attacked the boundary between PzAOK 1 and AOK 8. Zhukov’s three tank armies attacked east of Tarnopol and made good progress, despite the efforts of the LSSAH, 7.Panzer-Division and s.Pz.Abt.503 (13 Tigers) to block the advance. Konev had even more success, attacking the XXXXVII Panzerkorps and VII Armeekorps in the area south of Lisiyanka with the 2 TA and 6 TA. A total of five Soviet tank armies were involved in the operation. Without adequate armoured reserves to opposive the 5 GTA, Wöhler was compelled to retreat or face envelopment, but Hube held most of his ground, centred on Proskurov. In 10 days, Konev’s forces advanced 90km toward the Dnestr River. Hitler ordered von Manstein to stand fast, even though it was apparent the front was collapsing. Zhukov’s forces were on the outskirts of Tarnopol, which Hitler declared to be a fortress and ordered held.

In the south, Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukraininan Front attacked Hollidt’s AOK 6 south of Krivoi Rog on the morning of 6 March and the 8th Guards Army achieved a major breakthrough the next day. Demonstrating great agility, the 8 GA punched through the XXIX Armeekorps, shoving aside the burnt-out 23. Panzer-Division, which had only four tanks, one assault gun and six SPWs. Soviet tanks and cavalry – not seriously impeded by the mud – advanced boldly to AOK 6’s headquarters in Novy Bug and overran many German rear-echelon units. The 23.Panzer-Division was virtually destroyed, losing all its maintenance, medical and logistic units, as well as many of its vehicles.^{20} The Soviets then pivoted south to envelope five German infantry divisions from the IV Armeekorps and the 9.Panzer-Division. This trapped force was dubbed Gruppe Wittmann and since no rescue force was available, it was compelled to fight its way out of encirclement over the course of the next several weeks. Soon, all of AOK 6 was forced to retreat to avoid being cut off by fast-moving Soviet armoured spearheads. The 24.Panzer-Division fought a rearguard action, but lost over 800 men and one-quarter of its wheeled vehicles, which were immobilized by deep mud. By 13 March, AOK 6 formed a composite Panzergruppe with the remaining tanks of the 9., 23. and 24.Panzer-Divisionen – three tanks – to cover the retreat.^{21} Fuel shortages plagued the Germans during the retreat, forcing them to abandon a great deal of equipment. Totenkopf ran out of fuel at Balta, just short of the Dnestr, on 27 March and when the Soviets overran the town, the division was forced to abandon over 60 tanks and assault guns, as well as 1,000 wheeled vehicles.^{22} The last seven Tigers were blown up near Tiraspol by their crews on 2 April. By the time Totenkopf crossed the Dnestr into Romania, it had no tanks left.

Von Manstein expected the 1st Ukrainian Front to head west toward L’vov, so he strengthened Raus’ PzAOK 4 at the expense of Hube’s PzAOK 1. In fact, Zhukov and Konev struck southward on 18 March, breaking through on both of Hube’s flanks. On 17 March, the 2 TA reached the Dnestr River at Yampol. On 20 March, Katukov’s 1 TA re-entered the battle with 140 tanks and severed the last remaining links between Hube’s army and Raus’ PzAOK 4. At the same time, Konev unleashed Kravchenko’s 6 TA, which captured Mogilev-Podol’skiy on the Dniestr. The PzAOK 4 was in retreat and Gruppe Neinhoff, with 4,600 troops, was encircled in Tarnopol by the 1 GA. With his flanks demolished, Hube began falling back toward Kamenets-Podol’skiy, but Katukov severed his communications to the west, then managed to seize a bridgehead across the Dnestr. On 27 March, the 10 GTC from Badanov’s 4 TA captured Kamenets-Podol’skiy, which left Hube in a shrinking salient with his back to the Dnestr. He was cut off from the one remaining German-held bridge over the Dnestr at Khotin and the Luftwaffe began an airlift to supply him.

The encirclement of Hube’s PzAOK 1 was the largest catastrophe facing the Wehrmacht since Stalingrad. Hube’s army comprised over 200,000 troops in 10 Panzer-Divisionen (LSSAH, Das Reich, 1, 6, 7, 11, 16, 17, 19), one Panzergrenadier-Division (20), 12 infantry divisions, one artillery division, s.Pz.Abt.509 and s.Panzerjäger-Abteilung 88 (Nashorn).[43] Although the army only had 35 operational tanks when it was surrounded, the loss of the veteran personnel would effectively cost Germany half her trained tankers. After much arguing with Hitler, von Manstein finally convinced him that Hube had to break out of encirclement or Heeresgruppe Süd’s front would collapse. Although it was possible that Hube could have crossed the Dnestr, this would have made it very difficult for von Manstein to establish a new front. Instead, Hube was ordered to attack westward, where a relief force would assemble near the town of Berezhany. Hube reorganized his forces for combat, dividing all his units into two main assault formations: Korpsgruppe von der Chevallerie (1., 6., 7., 11. 16, 19.Panzer-Divisionen and LSSAH, plus six infantry divisions) and Korpsgruppe Breith (Das Reich and 17.Panzer-Division, plus seven infantry divisions). Unlike previous pockets where the entrapped forced remained stationary in order to receive air resupply, Hube did not intend to remain tied to airfields since he knew that Zhukov would soon assemble overwhelming forces around the pocket to prevent escape or rescue. Instead, Hube intended to fight his way through the Soviet encirclement and rely upon parachuted supplies. Having learned quite a bit about supplying encircled forces, the Luftwaffe sent a special team (Kesseltrupp) into the pocket equipped with air-ground radios, beacons and flares in order to mark drop zones as needed.^{23} Hube ordered all unnecessary or damaged vehicles destroyed, in order to reduce his army’s fuel requirements. On 28 March, Hube began attacking westward with Korpsgruppe Breith.

Badanov’s 4 TA was the main force blocking Hube’s escape, with his 10 GTC holding the vital road junction at Kamenets-Podol’skiy and the 6 GMC located just west of there. Although Badanov only had about 100 tanks left, he still had plenty of infantry, artillery and anti-tank guns with him. The 10 GTC formed a hedgehog in Kamenets-Podol’skiy which blocked the main routes across the Smotrich River, a tributary of the Dnestr. Rather than assaulting the Soviet strongpoint, the 17.Panzer-Division seized a crossing site over the Smotrich north of Kamenets-Podol’skiy and Hube’s army crossed over there. In the process, the 10 GTC itself was temporarily surrounded at Kamenets-Podol’skiy and Badanov, trying to stop the German breakout, was badly wounded on 29 March. The experienced General-leytenant Dmitri K. Lelyushenko was brought in to take command of 4 TA, but there was little that he could do but try to delay the breakout.

Initially, Zhukov was over-confident about the Kamenets-Podol’skiy pocket and simply assumed that Hube’s PzAOK would sit put. Instead of reinforcing Badanov, Zhukov sent Katukov’s 1 TA to capture Chernovtsy on 30 March and focused most of his effort on preventing any German units from escaping south across the Dnestr. He also committed the bulk of the 60th Army to reducing the German fortress of Tarnopol, even though the garrison was less than 5,000 troops. Both Zhukov and Konev used their infantry armies to compress the northern side of the pocket, but paid little attention to the western side of the pocket. At the same time, Hitler was furious that both Heeresgruppe Süd and Heeresgruppe A were in retreat and he opted to sack both von Manstein and von Kleist, whom he had lost faith in. In the case of von Manstein, the relief was not unjustified since von Manstein had consistently failed to anticipate enemy actions since Kursk and seemed more interested in retreats than counter-attacks. In their place, Hitler substituted Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model to command Heeresgruppe Süd and Schörner to command Heeresgruppe A. However, the immediate impact on the battle was negligible and both army groups continued to retreat.

By 31 March, Hube was advancing steadily westward and pushing back Lelyushenko’s over-extended 4 TA (part of which was still encircled at Kamenets-Podol’skiy). Recognizing that Hube was escaping westward and not southward as expected, Zhukov ordered Katukov to bring part of 1 TA back north of the Dnestr to assist 4 TA. Nevertheless, Zhukov did not move any significant infantry forces into this area to strengthen the defence, which enabled Hube’s desperate forces to continue pushing westward. By 4 April, Hube’s army was approaching the Strypa River at Buchach. Meanwhile, Model was assembling the relief force near Berezhany, 60km away, consisting of Hausser’s II. SS-Panzerkorps (9.SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen and 10.SS Panzer-Division Frundsberg), schwere Panzerjäger-Abteilung 653 (with 28 rebuilt Ferdinands) and two infantry divisions. Hausser’s two SS-Panzer-Divisionen had been training in France, but they were not fully equipped as Panzer-Division. Instead, each only had two companies Pz IVs and two batteries of StuG-IIIs, a total of 98 medium tanks and 88 assault guns. Nevertheless, by 6 April Hausser was attacking eastward toward Buchach to meet Hube.

In the end, the skill and desperation of Hube’s troops to escape and Zhukov’s failure to bolt the door decided the battle in the German favour. With the 6. and 7.Panzer-Divisionen in the lead, Korpsgruppe Breith fought its way through the Soviet cordon. Belatedly, Zhukov tried to shift six rifle divisions and the 2 GTC into Hube’s path, but 17.Panzer-Division fended them off long enough for the rest of the army to reach the Strypa River. On 8 April, the 6.Panzer-Division and two Tigers from the s.Pz.Abt.509 fought their way into Buchach and shortly thereafter, linked up with elements of II.SS-Panzerkorps. It took almost a week for all of Hube’s exhausted army to cross the Strypa River, but then it was able to form a new continuous front with PzAOK 4. In terms of equipment, PzAOK 1 was in extremely poor shape with barely two dozen tanks left (one Tiger), a few assault guns and seven Nashorns. The escape of Hube’s PzAOK 1 from encirclement at Kamenets-Podol’skiy was one of the great operational achievements of the Second World War, since it prevented the complete collapse of the German southern flank, at least for the time being. While Winston Churchill – speaking of Dunkirk – was correct that retreats do not equal victories, the successful breakout of Hube’s army was nevertheless a huge morale boost for the Wehrmacht.

There were two important tactical postscripts to the Korsun Pocket and Hube’s Pocket, both of which reflected the growing importance of German armour being used to rescue trapped garrisons. In the first case, the survivors of Gille’s Wiking division’s breakout from Korsun were sent to the Cholm-Kovel region in eastern Poland to regroup. Barely a month after arriving in Poland, a new Soviet offensive by the 2nd Byelorussian Front’s 47th Army encircled the city on 15 March, trapping over 4,000 troops. Although Wiking’s troops were outside the pocket, they had negligible combat capability. Nevertheless, a relief effort was hastily organized. The II./SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 had just arrived at Cholm after re-equipping with Panther tanks, but only one company was combat-ready and it was committed to lead the relief effort. By 21 March, Soviet Sherman tanks fought their way into Kovel and the city could fall at any time. On 27 March, a scratch relief force was assembled at Lukov, west of Kovel, consisting of an SS Kampfgruppe (17 Panthers and III./SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment Germania) and a Heer Kampfgruppe (7 StuG IIIs and Grenadier-Regiment 343). The direct route to Kovel led through a frozen marsh crossed by a railroad track, which was blocked by the 60th Rifle Division, a battery of anti-tank guns and mines. The Waffen-SS opted for the direct approach and attacked at midday on 28 March, during a blizzard. No artillery support was available due to communication problems – one of the most common forms of friction in war.^{24} Soviet 76.2mm anti-tank guns were sited at a right angle to the road and managed to destroy three Panthers with flank shots into their thinner side armour. When the Panthers tried to manoeuvre off road, 10 of the remaining 14 became bogged down in the soft terrain, which halted the relief effort. Recovering 10 Panthers from bog-like terrain with only a single Bergepanther consumed more than a day and the Heer troops were not sanguine about trying to push further with such a small force. Nor did the column have any pioniers to clear mines along the road. Nonplussed, the SS Panzer-Kompanie commander opted to go on alone and with a column of just nine Panthers he boldly advanced through the Soviet lines on the night of 29–30 March, losing two to mines, but then reached the city. However, this effort failed to lift the siege and only added a handful of tanks to the trapped garrison.^{25}

On 2 April, the rest of the II.SS-Pz.-Rgt.5 began arriving by rail with 59 more Panthers and a larger relief effort was assembled, including Kampfgruppen from 4. and 5.Panzer-Divisionen. On 4 April, the second relief attempt began and the Soviets desperately tried to stop it. Untersturmführer Renz, leader of the reconnaissance platoon from the II./SS-Pz.Abt.5, described the final lunge toward Kovel:

During our next forward move, we took a hit, which, luckily, only rattled our Panzer. My gunner reacted with lightning speed. I directed him, patting his shoulder with my right hand, exactly to the target. With ‘Explosive shell – 800 metres – cluster of buildings, Pak position in front – fire!’ we began the firefight. Our first shot was dead-on. A huge cloud of dust, mixed with fragments of trees and building material, rose into the sky. Being the point Panzer, I directed the fire of the whole 6.Kompanie by radio. Grossrock followed my gunner with the fire from his five Panthers, and within a few minutes we managed to stop the fire from the Paks and the tanks. Afterwards it was determined that we had destroyed several tanks, approximately ten Paks, and numerous heavy and light machine guns.^{26}

After blasting their way through the cordon of tanks and anti-tank guns, the Wiking’s Panthers reached Kovel on 5 April. However, only a tenuous line of communication existed to Kovel and since Hitler would not countenance evacuating the city, Wiking’s limited forces were committed to widening the corridor for the next three weeks. The Wiking Panthers gradually pushed the Soviet infantry back from the western side of the city, but mines and anti-tank guns wore down the SS-Panzer-Regiment 5’s strength.^{27} Yet Hitler was pleased, since Kovel was held for another four months. As with Korsun, even when a relief effort was successful, the cost in armour was often much higher than the benefits gained.

The other major relief effort during this period was Model’s attempted relief of Gruppe Neinhoff in Tarnopol. Model knew that it was important for front-line morale not to write-off trapped garrisons and once Hube’s PzAOK 1 was re-integrated into the front he managed to assemble a fairly large relief force by 10 April and selected Hermann Balck’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps to command the operation. The main assault element was SS-Gruppenführer Wilhelm Bittrich’s 9. SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen, which contributed a battalion of Pz IVs (II./SS-Pz.Rgt.9), a battalion of StuG-IIIs, a reconnaissance battalion, a battalion of Panzergrenadiers in SPWs (III.SS-Pz.Gr.Rgt.19), five other infantry battalions and a self-propelled artillery battalion (6x Hummel and 12x Wespe). Significantly, two-thirds of Hohenstaufen’s infantry were on foot, lacking motor transport. In addition, the 8.Panzer-Division contributed Kampfgruppe Friebe (I./Pz.Rgt.10) with 21 Panthers, the 8.Panzer-Division provided its SPW battalion (I./Pz.Gr.Rgt.79), s.Pz.Abt.507 added 12 Tigers and s.Pz.Jg.Abt.653 contributed 28 Ferdinands. Altogether, the relief force had 64 tanks, 27 assault guns and 2,000 infantrymen, although it was short of pionier support. Balck kicked off his attack on 11 April from a bridgehead over the Strypa River, but soon ran into stiff resistance from the Soviet 60th Army, which had deployed numerous anti-tank guns and mines along the route. Heavy spring rains turned the soil into mud so deep that German tanks ‘bellied out’ with their hulls, greatly reducing mobility. The 52nd Guards Tank Brigade from the 6 GTC (3 GTA) counter-attacked the German column with some of the new T-34/85 tanks, which was an unpleasant surprise for Hohenstaufen’s Pz IVs. Even two Ferdinands were destroyed with flank shots.^{28} In six days of heavy combat, Balck’s relief force advanced halfway toward Tarnopol, but lost 13 Pz IVs, two Tigers and 21 StuG-IIIs. The Germans claimed to have knocked out 74 Soviet tanks and 21 anti-tank guns.^{29} In an impressive display of front-line leadership, Model personally came forward to evaluate the operation’s progress, riding in a Sd.Kfz.251 command track. Nevertheless, it was clear by 15 April that the relief effort had bogged down short of its objective and the Soviets were rapidly reinforcing this sector with more armour. Model finally decided to abort the relief operation 8km short of Tarnopol and he ordered Gruppe Neinhoff to attempt a breakout operation before the town was overrun. Before dawn on 16 April, about 1,300 survivors of the garrison attempted to infiltrate through the Soviet cordon but only 55 reached the positions held by Balck’s XXXXVIII Panzerkorps. Neinhoff was killed in the breakout, as were most of his troops.

Following the efforts to relieve Kovel and Tarnopol, the Germans gained a brief respite due to the spring thaw. Both sides were also exhausted by 10 months of near-continuous fighting. On 4 April, the OKH decided to redesignate Heeresgruppe Süd as Heeresgruppe Nordukraine, with control of PzAOK 1, PzAOK 4 and the 1st Hungarian Army. Heeresgruppe Südukraine was created to control AOK 8, AOK 6, AOK 17 (in the Crimea) and what was left of the Romanian army. Interestingly, the Wehrmacht no longer remained on Ukrainian soil and Heeresgruppe Süd had been split into two pieces. Model believed that once the Soviets rebuilt their tank armies their main effort in the summer would be directed against his army group around L’vov and he used his influence to push for strong Panzer reinforcements to rebuild his command.

Defence of the Dniester Line, 5 April–15 May 1944

By the beginning of April 1944, Heeresgruppe Süd appeared to be broken in two and the Stavka regarded the liberation of the Ukraine as nearly complete. Although all the Soviet fronts were worn down by months of heavy combat, Stalin was eager to continue a broad front advance to seize as much territory as possible before the Germans regained their balance. Given that all four tank armies in the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts were reduced to 25 per cent or less of their authorized tank strength, a prudent course of action might have been to focus the remaining combat power on one axis of advance and temporarily shift to the defence elsewhere. Yet Stalin was not interested in prudence. He was interested in gaining as much territory as quickly as possible, before the Allies landed in France. Stalin ordered Zhukov’s 1st Ukrainian Front to continue advancing westward toward L’vov and Konev’s 2nd Ukrainian Front to move south into Romania, which meant the two strongest Soviet fronts assumed divergent courses and would no longer be within supporting range. Stalin regarded Romania as a particularly tempting target due to the Third Reich’s dependence upon the Ploesti oil fields and he believed that it was open for the taking.

On 5 April, the Stavka ordered Konev to advance into northern Romania with his 27th and 40th Armies, supported by Bogdanov’s 2 TA, to capture the frontier cities of Jassy and Kishinev.^{30} The Stavka ordered Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front to assist Konev with the advance into Romania, although the bulk of Malinovsky’s forces were focused on liberating the port of Odessa. Bogdanov could only field about 120 tanks between his 3 TC and 16 TC, but Stalin promised to send reinforcements. However just prior to Konev’s offensive, the Stavka pulled Kravchenko’s 6 TA back into reserve to refit, followed by Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA, leaving very little armour at the front. Consequently, Konev’s advance across the Dniester River into northern Romania began primarily with infantry on foot, supported by fewer than 200 tanks and a bare minimum of artillery support. In effect, the Stavka was repeating the same kind of mistake that it had previously made with Operations Star and Gallop in early 1943.

There was no doubt that the German and Romanian forces were disorganized after their precipitate retreat from the Ukraine, but Wöhler’s AOK 8 was able to coalesce around Kishinev with five Panzer-Divisionen (Totenkopf, 3., 11., 13. and 14.Panzer-Divisionen) that proved to be a serious obstacle. At Jassy, the XXXXVII Panzerkorps concentrated Großdeutschland, 23. and 24.Panzer-Divisionen to block an advance by the under-strength 2 TA. In these sectors, the Germans were aided by rough terrain that favoured the defence and rainy weather that greatly slowed the Soviet advance. Inside Romania, the German units had simplified supply lines and received ample supplies of fuel and ammunition.

Nevertheless, the 27th Army advanced fairly rapidly into northern Romania, easily dispersing small Romanian rearguards and its 3rd Guards Rifle Corps (3 GRC) was able to capture the vital road junction at Tirgu Fromos on 9 April. Wöhler reacted by ordering Großdeutschland to conduct an immediate counter-attack in conjunction with the Romanian IV Army Corps to retake the town. Despite its involvement in heavy combat since Zitadelle, the Großdeutschland was one of the few mechanized units on the Eastern Front that the OKH had kept up to strength; in this, the fact that the division could recruit from across Germany, like the Waffen-SS, gave it an advantage over the Heer’s other Panzer-Divisionen, whose replacements were derived from home Wehrkreis. By early April 1944, Großdeutschland was still a formidable force with about 45 operational tanks (a mix of Pz IV, Panthers and Tigers), 25 assault guns and 1,600 Panzergrenadiers.^{31} Under the leadership of the firebrand Generalleutnant Hasso von Manteuffel, Großdeutschland conducted a rapid 40km march toward Tirgu Fromos, which caught the Soviet 27th Army completely by surprise. Von Manteuffel attacked with his Panzergrenadiers and Panzers on the morning of 10 April and recaptured Tirgu Fromos by evening, isolating three rifle divisions from the 3 GRC. Since von Manteuffel lacked the troops to surround the 3 GRC, the Soviet divisions were able to escape, but abandoned much of their equipment. Having cleared the area, von Manteuffel rapidly established a new defensive hedgehog around Tirgu Fromos, with his Panzergrenadiers digging in on the perimeter and his tanks kept as a mobile reserve. Once secure, von Manteuffel mounted an active defence for the next three weeks, using company-size armoured raids to keep Konev’s forces off balance.

Surprised by the rebuff at Tirgu Fromos, Konev urged Bogdanov’s 2 TA to push toward Podu Iloaie with 3 TC, 16 TC and two rifle divisions. However, the 24.Panzer-Division mounted a series of small armoured counter-attacks on 12–13 April that completely halted Bogdanov’s advance. Likewise, the German armour concentration at Jassy fended off all efforts by Bogdanov to move in that direction as well. Further south, the XXXX Panzerkorps mounted a strong defence at Orgeev with the 3., 11. and 13.Panzer-Divisionen which slowed the 4th Guards Army’s crossing of the Dniester. By mid-April, Konev was forced to shift to the defence across his front and await replacements to restore his dulled combat capabilities. Consequently, German tactical victories at Tirgu Fromos, Podu Iloaie and Jassy prevented Konev from pushing rapidly into Romania and gave Heeresgruppe Südukraine a short, but valuable respite.

Meanwhile, Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front succeeded in liberating Odessa on the morning of 10 April, but efforts to encircle the eastern half of AOK 6 with General-leytenant Issa A. Pliev’s tank-cavalry mobile group (4 GMC, 4 GCC) failed.^{32} Instead, Malinovsky pursued Hollidt’s retreating AOK 6 to the Dniester River with four armies and managed to seize a number of small bridgeheads over the river before the Axis defence gelled. However, the Stavka pulled Pliev’s cavalry group back to refit and Malinovsky was left only with the depleted 23 TC and a few tank brigades, which were insufficient to expand the bridgeheads. Instead, Axis resistance noticeably stiffened and AOK 6 fortified high ground overlooking the tiny bridgeheads and repulsed all of Malinovsky’s attempts to break out for the next several weeks.

Embarrassed by his initial defeats at Tirgu Fromos, Konev used the last half of April to prepare for a second round. He brought up General-polkovnik Mikhail S. Shumilov’s relatively fresh 7th Guards Army (seven rifle divisions and the 27 GTB) to be the main battering ram against Wöhler’s lines to the west of Tirgu Fromos and Rotmistrov’s partly-rebuilt 5 GTA to be the exploitation force. General-leytenant Sergei G. Trofimenko’s 27th Army (seven rifle divisions and two tank regiments) would mount a supporting attack northeast of Tirgu Fromos, with Bogdanov’s 2 TA ready to exploit a breakthrough. Rotmistrov would deploy the 18 TC and 29 TC with 231 tanks (incl. 183 T-34) and 87 self-propelled guns. In addition, the RVGK reinforced Rotmistrov with the 14th and 53rd Guards Heavy Tank Regiments, each with about 20 of the new JS-2 heavy tanks. Rotmistrov had also received some of the new T-34/85 medium tanks.^{33} Boganov’s 2 TA was considerably weaker, with the 3 GTC, 16 TC and 11 GTB having a total of just 98 tanks (75 T-34, 16 JS-2 heavy tanks, 5 JS-85 heavy tanks and 2 Churchills) and 23 self-propelled guns (18 SU-152 and 5 SU-85).^{34} Due to the lack of combat-ready independent tank brigades, Konev was forced to use both 5 GTA and 2 TA in the infantry support role, which left him with no armoured reserve for exploitation. Nevertheless, Konev could commit nearly 500 AFVs in his two tank armies, which he believed provided him with a 4–1 or better numerical superiority in armour. Assisted by three artillery divisions, Konev expected to blast his way through Wöhler’s front and push on deep into the interior of Romania.

In fact, Konev’s offensive planning was based upon faulty intelligence. Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps used the Großdeutschland to anchor the defence at Tirgu Fromos, but had to rely upon Romanian units to cover both flanks. The Romanian infantry was poorly equipped and suffered from poor morale, but Brigadier-General Radu Korne’s 1st Armoured Division still had some fight left in it. In September 1943 Germany had begun to provide Romania with Pz IV tanks and Korne’s division had several dozen Pz IVs and a dozen StuG-III assault guns, as well as some SPWs for its infantry. Von Manteuffel’s Großdeutschland had 36–39 operational tanks (22 Pz IV, 6–7 Tigers and 8–10 Panthers) in Oberst Willy Langkeit’s Panzer-Regiment, and the division still had a number of assault guns.^{35} Generalleutnant Maximilian Freiherr von Edelsheim’s 24.Panzer-Division, deployed at Podul-Iloaie, was also available to support Kirchner with 15 Pz IVs and nine StuG-IIIs.[44] Although Totenkopf had lost all its tanks and many of its vehicles during the retreat to the Dniester, it had just received some replacements and Wöhler ordered it to form a mobile Kampfgruppe as an operational reserve for LVII Panzerkorps; by evening of 1 May SS-Sturmbannführer Fritz Beiermeier formed a group consisting of 24 Pz IV tanks, II.SS-Pz.Gr.Rgt.6 and a battery of assault guns. The German troops had used the three weeks at Tirgu Fromos wisely, digging in deeply and laying minefields. For once, the Germans had something like a defence in depth and adequate mobile reserves. Furthermore, German intelligence knew where the enemy was about to strike.

At 0515 hours on 2 May, Konev began his offensive with a massive 60-minute artillery barrage that laid waste to some of the enemy’s front-line positions. Then at 0615 hours, Shumilov’s 7 GA attacked with eight reinforced rifle divisions, followed by waves of tanks from General-major Evgeny I. Fominykh’s 29 TC. The Grenadier-Regiment Großdeutschland was hard hit and partly overrun, with at least one company nearly destroyed. Interestingly, even in an elite unit like Großdeutschland, Panzergrenadiers still relied upon the hand-delivered Hafthohlladung (hollow charge magnetic mine) for close-combat with tanks since the new Panzerfaust was not yet available in quantity.

However, Fominykh’s tankers failed to spot a battery of concealed assault guns, which blasted the lead Soviet tank battalion from the point-blank range of 300 metres. Then von Manteuffel committed Langkeit’s Panzer-Regiment Großdeutschland in an expertly-executed counter-attack, which virtually slaughtered the remainder of Fominykh’s T-34s. As the Soviet attack ebbed, Langkeit’s Panzers came under long-range fire from 13 JS-2 heavy tanks from the 14th Guards Separate Heavy Tank Regiment.^{36} Langkeit brought up Oberleutnant Fritz Stadler’s eight Tigers and the first battle between the latest Soviet and German heavy tanks began at a range of over 2,000 metres. Technically, the Soviet 122mm D-25T gun had better penetration than the German 8.8cm KwK 36 at this kind of range, but the Soviet tankers lacked the training to achieve accuracy over this distance. Von Manteuffel saw rounds from the Tigers strike the enemy heavy tanks, but they ‘all bounced off.’ The IS-2 had a much lower rate of fire than the Tiger and only eight BR-471 APHE rounds each, so they fired sparingly. Stadler decided to move in closer and probably told his crews to switch to Panzergranate 40 APCR with tungsten cores.[45] This time, from a range of about 1,800 metres, the Tigers were able to destroy four IS-2, which caused the rest to retreat. Langkeit aggressively ordered a company of Pz IVs to pursue the retreating enemy heavy tanks and they were able to close within 1,000 metres and knock out a few more with shots into the rear armour.

While von Manteuffel was focused on his left flank, two more Soviet rifle divisions and General-major Ivan A. Vovchenko’s 3 GTC tried to overrun his Füsilier-Regiment. Langkeit sent his other company of Pz IVs to this sector and von Edelsheim also sent part of an armoured Kampfgruppe, which resulted in Vovchenko’s tankers being hit on both flanks and losing more than 30 tanks in a one-sided action. Ironically, Shumilov’s 7 GA achieved some success west of Tirgu Fromos, where the 8th Guards Airborne Division and the 18 TC succeeded in routing the Romanian 6th Infantry Division. However, Korne moved a battlegroup of his armoured division to prevent a complete collapse in this sector and Konev failed to reinforce his success here.

Northeast of Tirgu Fromos, the Soviet 27th Army attacked the right flank of Füsilier-Regiment Großdeutschland and a regiment from the 46.Infanterie-Division with three rifle divisions. Bogdanov supported the attack with about 120 AFV, including 16 JS-2s from the 6th Separate Heavy Tank Regiment. This attack achieved some success, penetrating over 5km into the German line, which caused Bogdanov to commit Dubovoi’s 16 TC to exploit the perceived gap. Before noon, the JS-2s drove into the town of Facuti and began to engage German artillery and headquarters troops. This was a tense moment for von Manteuffel, whose own armour was fully engaged at this point. However, von Edelsheim committed both his Kampfgruppen, which attacked into Dubovoi’s exposed flank with about 40 tanks and assault guns. Two of Dubovoi’s brigades were shot-up, losing perhaps 40 tanks, and the rest of the corps was routed. Amazingly, Kirchner’s LVII Panzerkorps had repulsed Konev’s offensive and inflicted heavy losses upon the 2 TA and 5 GTA, amounting to about 150–200 tanks and self-propelled guns.^{37} Out of about 36 tanks engaged, Großdeutschland lost six tanks destroyed and eight damaged.

Konev refused to accept that Kirchner’s defence around Tirgu Fromos was still solid and decided to renew the attack on 3 May. Massing his remaining armour, infantry and artillery, Konev tried to bash his way through Kirchner’s lines on a narrower front, but the 8.8cm flak guns from Großdeutschland inflicted a ‘tank slaughter’ upon Rotmistrov and sharp counter-attacks by the Großdeutschland, 24.Panzer-Division and Kampfgruppe Beiermeier from Totenkopf repulsed every Soviet attack. After two days of combat, Konev had fewer than 200 AFVs still operational, but he tried again on 4 May; this final surge only resulted in more needless casualties and left’s Konev’s exhausted and depleted forces over-extended. He decided to shift to the defence and pulled Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA back to refit. Bogdanov’s 2 TA was reduced to just 35 tanks and 12 self-propelled guns.^{38} Sensing the weakness of Konev’s front-line units, Kirchner mounted two combined-arms counter-attacks with infantry, panzers and some air support on 7 May, which caught the Soviet 7 GA and 27 Army flat-footed. Both Großdeutschland and 24.Panzer-Division were able to recover some key terrain and inflict painful losses on Konev’s forces. Following this success, both sides shifted to the defence in northern Romania.

However, the Stavka had hoped that Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukrainian Front could mount an offensive across the Dniester from its small Tashlyk bridgehead and set the stage for a push toward Kishinev. Rather than used the depleted units already in the bridgehead, Malinovsky opted to bring up his relatively fresh 8th Guards Army (8 GA) and 5th Shock Army to take their places. It is always dangerous conducting a relief in place under the gaze of an alert enemy and the German 6.Armee (AOK 6), now under General der Artillerie Maximilian de Angelis, spotted what Malinovsky was attempting to do and decided to pre-empt it. General der Panzertruppen Otto von Knobelsdorff formed an assault group based around his XXXX Panzerkorps, comprised of the 3., 13. and 14.Panzer-Divisionen, two assault gun brigades and two infantry divisions. On the morning of 10 May, von Knobelsdorff attacked with all three Panzer-Divisionen on line after an artillery preparation and rapidly penetrated the Soviet perimeter of their bridgehead. General-leytenant Vasily I. Chuikov, hero of Stalingrad, commanded the 8 GA in the bridgehead, but his units were not ready to repel an attack by over 100 German tanks and assault guns. Chuikov had only 10 tanks in the bridgehead and his artillery was very short of ammunition. The Germans struck while Chuikov’s divisions were still moving into the bridgehead and they were shattered. In three days of heavy fighting, von Knobelsdorff’s Panzers greatly reduced the Soviet bridgehead and inflicted up to 30,000 casualties upon Chuikov’s veteran 8 GA; thousands of Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner.^{39}

Malinovsky attempted to reduce the pressure on Chuikov’s battered 8 GA by ordering the 5th Shock Army to mount a supporting attack across the Dniester, but von Knobelsdorff’s assault troops handily defeated this effort and inflicted 20,000 more Soviet casualties. With both Konev’s and Malinovsky’s fronts defeated, the Stavka had no choice but to postpone a major push into Romania until the summer months. Not only did Heeresgruppe Südukraine conduct a very successful defence, but Wöhler’s AOK 8 even continued local attacks in June to disrupt Konev’s forces north of Jassy. For the Red Army, once again the danger of continuing offensives with badly depleted forces was made evident, which played to the German strength of striking back at over-extended Soviet spearheads. It was also a very poor idea to use valuable tank armies in the infantry support role. For the Germans, the victory in defending the Dniester in April-May demonstrated the value of a mobile defence and was one of the last occasions where Panzer-Divisionen achieved a significant operational-level success.

Operation Bagration and its Aftermath, 22 June–31 August 1944

Contrary to popular Eastern Front historiography, the Stavka did not ignore Heeresgruppe Mitte during the winter of 1943–44 and mounted several major attacks against the Vitebsk salient held by 3.Panzerarmee (PzAOK 3) and against 4.Armee (AOK 4) at Orsha. Despite some tense moments, Heeresgruppe Mitte’s central defences held, even if both flanks were increasingly vulnerable. Nevertheless, Heeresgruppe Mitte still suffered over 128,000 casualties between January and mid-June 1944, including 36,000 dead or missing. The drain of constant casualties and the influx of partly-trained replacements led to a stark reduction in the quality of many of the divisions in Heeresgruppe Mitte. Half of the infantry units were at 50 per cent strength or less, but each was expected to hold 20km or more of the front. Under Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch, Heeresgruppe Mitte settled into a Stellungskrieg (positional warfare) mindset and focused on building up impregnable defences. Each German division established minefields and obstacles to their front and alternate defence lines to their rear. The cities of Bobruisk, Mogilev, Orsha and Vitebsk were converted into strong defensive hedgehogs, intended to act as obstacles to any Soviet advance. The terrain in this area, replete with marshlands and forests, favoured the defence and made the large-scale use of armour seem improbable. Due to Soviet advances in the Ukraine, Heeresgruppe Mitte now held a large salient, centred around Minsk, which offered the theoretical advantage of using the ‘central position’ tactic which had worked well in the defence of previous salient, such as Rzhev. However in order for the tactic to work, the defender had to have mobile reserves.

In May 1944, Model began requesting that the OKH transfer him additional armoured formations in order to mount a counter-offensive to recover ground east of L’vov. In reality, Model simply wanted additional armoured reserves to deal with the next round of Soviet offensives and he was able to convince Hitler and the OKH that Heeresgruppe Nordukraine was likely to receive the enemy’s main blow, rather than Heeresgruppe Mitte. Eventually, Hitler authorized the transfer of the LVI Panzerkorps (4. and 5.Panzer-Divisionen, s.Pz.abt.505 and Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 237) from Heeresgruppe Mitte to Heeresgruppe Nordukraine on 29 May, which effectively deprived the former of its primary armoured reserves. Instead, Heeresgruppe Mitte was left with only a single Panzer-Division in operational reserve – Generalleutnant Mortimer von Kessel’s 20.Panzer-Division, which had a single Panzer-Abteilung with 71 Pz IVs. In addition, Heeresgruppe Mitte had s.Pz.Abt.501, with 20 operational Tigers.

Yet even if Heeresgruppe Mitte had retained the LVI Panzerkorps and been reinforced with additional armour, Germany’s ability to conduct mobile operations was rapidly coming to an end due to the fuel crisis. The Third Reich had always been short of fuel, but the Allied bombing effort that began in April 1944 against German oil production facilities had an almost immediate impact upon the Luftwaffe and mechanized units. The Romanian oil fields at Ploesti were bombed repeatedly in April-June 1944 and production was curtailed by 80 per cent, while the attacks on synthetic plants deprived Germany of both fuel and synthetic rubber. Between March and September 1944, Germany’s production of fuel for motor vehicles fell by 64 per cent, which immediately impacted the operational mobility of Panzer-Divisionen at the front.^{40}

On 31 May 1944, the Ostheer had been reduced to only 955 operational tanks on the Eastern Front, of which 233 were Tigers, 238 were Panthers and 484 were Pz IVs.^{41} The Ostheer had a total of 16 Panzer-Divisionen, seven Panzergrenadier-Divisionen and six schwere Panzer-Abteilungen. Only about six of the 23 mechanized divisions were still reasonably combat effective (Großdeutschland, 1., 4., 5., 8. and 24.Panzer-Divisionen) while the rest were reduced to 25–40 per cent combat effectiveness. Noticeably, the bulk of the German armour was in the south: 606 tanks in Heeresgruppe Nordukraine, 190 in Südukraine, 86 in Mitte and just 73 in Nord. In contrast, the Red Army was now capable of committing over 6,000 tanks into battle across the Eastern Front, with large reserves ready to replace losses.

By early June 1944, Heeresgruppe Mitte had over 578,000 personnel assigned – 31 per cent of the entire Ostheer – although its actual front-line combat strength was barely 120,000 troops.^{42} Busch’s main forces consisted of Generaloberst Georg-Hans Reinhardt’s PzAOK 3, General der Infanterie Kurt von Tippelskirch’s AOK 4 and General der Infanterie Hans Jordan’s AOK 9, which altogether had a total of 26 infantry divisions, two Luftwaffe Feld-Divisionen and three Panzergrenadier-Divisionen (18, 25, Feldherrnhalle). Busch also had Generaloberst Walter Weiss’s AOK 2, which protected the boundary between Heeresgruppe Mitte and Heeresgruppe Nordukraine. Busch was fairly optimistic that the salient could be held due to the strong field works, since previous Soviet offensives had taken days or weeks to chew their way through less robust defences. Based upon past experience of Soviet efforts to break German defence lines, neither Busch nor the OKH anticipated that the Red Army would be able to create a breakthrough in more than one or two sectors, which could then be contained. The only really worrisome factor was the weakness of the Luftwaffe, since Luftflotte 6 only had 40 Bf-109G fighters assigned – grossly insufficient for air cover over Heeresgruppe Mitte.

Since Busch’s mission was strictly defensive, most of the armour assigned to Heeresgruppe Mitte consisted of assault guns and self-propelled Panzerjägers. Aside from Mortimer’s 20.Panzer-Division, the only other division with tanks was Feldherrnhalle, which had 20 Pz IVs and a battery of StuG-IIIs. Altogether, the PzAOK 3 had about 60 assault guns and one battalion of Nashorns (s.Pz. Jgr.Abt.59), the AOK 4 had 246 assault guns and two battalions of Nashorns (s.Pz.Jgr.Abt.655) and AOK 9 had 76 assault guns. This gave Heeresgruppe Mitte a grand total of 111 tanks, 382 assault guns and 100–120 tank destroyers (Nashorn and Marder).^{43} It is significant that Heeresgruppe Mitte had no Panthers at this point – one year after they had been introduced on the Eastern Front – and still relied upon the Pz IV as its main battle tank. Although German industry had increased the production of the Pz IV tank to 300 per month, the latest Ausf J version was a step backward, since it omitted the turret motor to save space and weight; this meant that German tankers using this model now had to laboriously crank the turret around by hand – a huge disadvantage in battle. Busch could have massed his assault guns in mobile anti-tank reserves with 50 or more StuG-IIIs kept behind each army, but he allowed these assets to be split up into penny packets, generally a battery or a platoon assigned to each infantry division.

German intelligence expected that any new Soviet offensives against Heeresgruppe Mitte would likely focus on Vitebsk and Orsha, as they had in the past. However, since the OKH expected the main Soviet offensive would be against Model’s Heeresgruppe Nordukraine that is where the bulk of the German armour was deployed. Thus Busch’s army group was now like the French in 1940, expecting a predictable battle of position but getting a battle of manoeuvre for which it was unprepared.

On the other side, the Soviets had four fronts deployed against Heeresgruppe Mitte: Rokossovsky’s 1st Byelorussian Front, General-polkovnik Georgy F. Zakharov’s 2nd Byelorussian Front, General-polkovnik Ivan Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Byelorussian Front and General Ivan Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front. After the liberation of the Ukraine, Stalin was eager to see Byelorussia liberated as well and he directed the Stavka to begin planning for a major summer offensive against Heeresgruppe Mitte. Zhukov was recalled to Moscow in late April and together with Vasilevsky and other members of the Stavka, they developed an outline for a grand offensive to be known as Bagration. Unlike previous Soviet offensives, Bagration was intended to be a massive set-piece battle with the resources needed to achieve a decisive victory. This time, Stalin did not rush the professionals but allowed Zhukov and Vasilevsky the time they need to amass overwhelming combat power against Heeresgruppe Mitte. While most of the 118 rifle divisions allocated for the operation were at only 60 per cent of authorized strength, the Soviets would still enjoy a 3–1 superiority in infantry. This time, the Red Army would use all the tools of combined arms warfare in synchronization, in order to unlock the German defences. A massive amount of artillery support, including 13 artillery divisions, was provided for Bagration. Four air armies were deployed with over 5,000 aircraft, including 2,300 fighters – which would allow the VVS to completely dominate the airspace over the battlefield.

The Stavka intended to use infantry, artillery and airpower to smash through Heeresgruppe Mitte’s front lines at multiple points, and then push its armour through to exploit deep into the rear. Zhukov and Vasilevsky were both familiar with Vladimir K. Triandafillov’s pre-war theories of Deep Battle (glubokiy boy) and intended to use a similar approach in the conduct of Bagration. As part of the Maskirovka (deception) effort, the bulk of the Red Army’s armoured formations remained with the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, but the four fronts involved in Bagration were provided with six tank corps (1 TC, 1 GTC, 2 GTC, 3 GTC, 9 TC, 29 TC) and two mechanized corps (1 MC, 3 GMC), including Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA which was quietly transferred from northern Romania to Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Byelorussian Front. These armoured formations had over 2,700 tanks. Soviet production was such that the Red Army could now begin to equip tank brigades entirely with T-34s and the T-70 light tanks began to phase out of service. About 20 per cent of the T-34s were the newest T-34/85 model, which was definitely superior to the Pz IV Ausf J. Some Soviet units were still equipped primarily with Lend-Lease armour, such as the 3 GMC, which had over 100 M4A2 Shermans and some Valentines and Churchills.^{44} The number of JS-2 heavy tanks was still limited and only 80 in four regiments were available for Bagration. However, production of the Su-76M self-propelled gun was well advanced and over 1,000 SPGs would be involved in the offensive, as well as over 100 of the new JSU-122 which was capable of defeating Tiger tanks.

On 22 June, the four Soviet fronts began counter-reconnaissance and probing actions all along Heeresgruppe Mitte’s front, stripping away its outpost line. Then at 0500 hours on 23 June, the Red Army unleashed a two-hour artillery preparation unlike anything the Germans had previously experienced. Most Soviet artillery units fired two basic loads of ammunition during the preparation, meaning that a battery of 122mm howitzers fired 640 rounds each.^{45} Although well dug in, the front-line German infantry positions were badly battered. Around 0700 hours, the ground attack began with specially-organized assault groups moving forward to clear obstacles and eliminate forward German positions. Unlike previous offensives, the Red Army avoided sending large masses of infantry forward until forward obstacles were breached and ensured that these assault groups were provided with adequate engineer support. The new PT-34 mine-roller tank was employed for the first time in quantity and it proved a success at rapidly clearing lanes through minefields. Although the German forward defences in the AOK 4 and AOK 9 sectors was still strong enough to repulse the initial attacks, it was a different story in Reinhardt’s PzAOK 3 sector. The 6th Guards Army and 43rd Army from Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front punched their way through the German IX Armeekorps defence west of Vitebsk while the 5th and 39th Armies from Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Byelorussian Front smashed the VI Armeekorps south of Vitebsk. By the end of the first day of Bagration, it was clear that the two Soviet fronts were attempting a double envelopment of the LIII Armeekorps in the Vitebsk salient.

Busch was at Hitler’s headquarters when Bagration began and did not immediately grasp the scale of what he was up against. Hitler ordered ‘no retreat’ and Busch obeyed, without protest. In reality, it was really up to the local German commanders to decide how to respond to the Soviet offensive and thus the normal quick-thinking style of decision-making that characterized earlier German operations was not really evident in this situation. On 24 June, the Soviets increased the scale of artillery preparation in all sectors and this time, achieved small breakthroughs against AOK 4 and AOK 9, as well. The problem was that the German units were trying to hold too much frontline with too few troops, so inevitably the Soviet assault groups would find a weak spot. Near Orsha, the AOK 4 split the 20 Tigers of s.Pz.Abt.501 up across a wide area, trying to contain multiple enemy assault groups, but the dispersion into platoon-size packets robbed the Tigers of their ability to influence the battle. Although the Tigers, assault guns and Pak guns managed to knock out a significant amount of Soviet tanks, it was soon apparent that the Soviets were advancing much more quickly than thought possible. Reinhardt’s sector was the hardest hit and his front collapsed first. For the Germans soldiers in the front line of Heeresgruppe Mitte, Operation Bagration struck like a tidal wave, inundating all their fixed defences at a terrifying rate.

Hans Jordan waited until 25 January before committing Kessel’s 20.Panzer-Division and then sent it to deal with the enemy breakthrough south of Bobruisk, in the XXXXI Panzerkorps sector. Kessel’s division did not move into combat as an integral whole, but in pieces, and it was surprised to bump into armour from the 1 GTC well behind the XXXXI Panzerkorps’ HKL. Near the village of Slobodka, Panzer-Abteilung 21 claimed to have knocked out 60 tanks from Panov’s 1 GTC, but lost about 30 Pz IVs. While Kessel’s Panzers were tied up with Panov, the Soviet 3rd Army punched through the XXXV Armeekorps east of Bobruisk and sent the 9 TC to envelop the city. After just three days of battle, Jordan’s AOK 9 was in serious trouble. In the middle of the German front, AOK 4 initially held together because it had some of the best units and Zakharin’s 2nd Byelorussian Front did not have its own armoured exploitation force. Yet when both flanks began to give way on 25 June, AOK 4 began falling back toward the Dnepr River and Orsha was overrun on 26 June. Chernyakhovskiy sent Burdeiny’s 2 TC down the Smolensk-Minsk highway in pursuit.

For Heeresgruppe Mitte, the real disaster occurred in the area in between VI Armeekorps and XXVII Armeekorps, where the 5th Army achieved a complete breakthrough when two German infantry divisions disintegrated. Choosing the right moment, Chernyakhovsky committed Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA into the breach and this time, the Soviet armoured wedge advanced rapidly into the depth of the German defences, overrunning artillery and support units. The collapse of the VI Armeekorps left Reinhardt’s right flank in ruins and Soviet infantry and armour moved in to encircle the LIII Armeekorps in Vitebsk. Reinhardt pleaded with Busch and Hitler to allow these units to retreat before they were surrounded, but this was refused. Instead, the Soviets surrounded LIII Armeekorps by 26 June and the formation attempted a breakout on 27 June that resulted in the loss of 30,000 German troops. Reinhardt’s broken PzAOK 3 retreated westward toward Polotsk. Rotmistrov’s armour poured into the German centre, wreaking havoc. The Panzer-Grenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle tried to act as a blocking force north of Orsha but it was easily batted out of the way, then encircled and destroyed.

By 27 June, it was obvious even to Hitler that Bagration was no normal Soviet offensive, since Heeresgruppe Mitte was giving way everywhere. Ignoring Busch’s belated requests to retreat to save his armies from imminent encirclement, Hitler began to act irrationally. He ordered the 12.Panzer-Division (equipped with nine Pz III and 35 Pz IVs) transferred from Heeresgruppe Nord to reinforce Jordan’s AOK 9, then relieved Jordan of command for his belated commitment of 20.Panzer-Division.^{46} Yet before the lead elements of 12.Panzer-Division could begin arriving by rail, Rokossovsky began to complete his double envelopment of Bobruisk. In short order, the 20.Panzer-Division and the bulk of the XXXV Armeekorps and XXXXI Panzerkorps were surrounded. Kessel spearheaded a breakout effort on 28 June that managed to save part of his division and 12,000 German troops, but the rest were abandoned to their fate. When the 65th Army stormed Bobruisk on 29 June, two German corps and 70,000 troops had been killed or captured. Rokossovsky exploited his victory by dispatching a mixed armour-cavalry group east toward the rail junction Baranovichi, which would complicate the German ability to move in reinforcements against his flank.

With PzAOK 3 and AOK 9 virtually destroyed, von Tippelskirch’s AOK 4 was unable to hold on the Dnepr and fell back rapidly to the Berezina River, abandoning Mogilev on 28 June. Only six out of 20 Tigers from s.Pz.Abt.501 made it across the Berezina; the rest either ran out of fuel or were damaged. The German infantry divisions were in even worse shape since they had very few motor vehicles and their artillery was towed by horses – so they could not outrun Soviet mechanized units. Rotmistrov’s armour was hot on AOK 4’s heels, stomping on retreating German columns and his vanguard was approaching the Berezina. The 78.Sturm-Division, one of the best infantry divisions in the Heer, was surrounded and destroyed near Orsha. As the Germans retreated, they were also pounded by VVS airstrikes, which killed two German corps commanders on 28 June (Pfeiffer of VI Armeekorps and Martinek of XXXXI Panzerkorps). The AOK 9 headquarters was also bombed, knocking out critical communications links. On the same day, Hitler sacked Busch and replaced him with Model, although this officer also retained command over Heeresgruppe Nordukraine.

By the time Model took command, Heeresgruppe Mitte was a broken, routed force that had almost no intact units left and was running for the rear. Reinhardt’s PzAOK 3 was a loose fragment, gravitating toward the northwest, without connection to either Heeresgruppe Nord’s AOK 16 or the rest of Heeresgruppe Mitte. Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front pursued Reinhardt and, if it had possessed a tank army, the pursuit could have been decisive. In the centre, the remnants of AOK 4 and AOK 9 fell back toward the Berezina at Borisov then to Minsk, where Generalleutnant Karl Decker’s 5.Panzer-Division and the attached s.Pz.Abt.505 (29 Tigers) were just arriving by rail from Kovel; this division had been recently rebuilt and had 55 Pz IVs and 70 Panthers.^{47} Generalleutnant Dietrich von Saucken, a solid Prussian cavalry officer, was put in charge of Decker’s division and a few other rear detachments and was given the difficult mission of holding the crossings over the Berezina as long as possible in order to save the two retreating armies.

One company of Tigers from s.Pz.Abt.505 detrained near Krupki, 36km northeast of Borisov, on the evening of 27 June and found itself immediately in contact with the lead elements of Vovchenko’s 3 GTC from Rotmistrov’s 5 GTA. Vovchenko’s corps was primarily equipped with Lend-Lease tanks: 110 M4A2 Shermans 70 Valentine Mk IX and 16 T-34s.* On 28 June, the Tigers tried to make a stand against the mass of the 3 GTC, but it was like a rock against the sea; the Tigers knocked out 34 tanks but the Shermans flowed around both flanks and six damaged Tigers have to be abandoned. The next day, the Tigers knocked out another 21 enemy tanks but were quickly threatened with encirclement once their ammunition was nearly exhausted and they were forced to retreat. Reaching the Berezina River, the Tigers could not cross the bridge and had to await engineer support to reinforce the structure. Once across the Berezina on 30 June, the Tigers conducted a mobile delay action to slow 5 GTA while 5.Panzer-Division deployed.

Decker’s Panzer-Pioniers wired the bridges over the Berezina for detonation while the divisional reconnaissance battalion screened along the river. However, the lead elements of the 5 GTA reached the Berezina and decided to bypass the 5.Panzer-Division roadblock at Borisov by gaining a small crossing north of the city. Several Soviet rifle divisions were right behind 5 GTA and also got troops across the river. No more German troops were coming, so Decker blew the bridges over the river. Once Rotmistrov reached the Berezina, he pushed the 29 TC across north of Borisov while the 2 GTC crossed south near Berezino. Since Decker’s 5.Panzer-Division did not yet have its Panzer-Regiment on the Berezina, he was only able to fight a delaying action before abandoning Borisov on the evening of 30 June. By 1 July, Rotmistrov was across the Berezina in force and Heeresgruppe Mitte rear elements began to evacuate Minsk. Rotmistrov decided to conduct a double envelopment of the city, sending 2 GTC as the southern pincer and 29 TC and 3 GMC as the northern pincer. Once Panzer-Regiment 31 reached the front, Decker and von Saucken elected to fight a tank battle near Pleshchenitsy, 55km northeast of Minsk, to stop the northern pincer. The battle was fought in an area covered by forests and peat bogs, which complicated tactical mobility and reduced engagement ranges to under 500 metres. Decker’s 5.Panzer-Divison fought a bitter action on 1–2 July and succeeded in stalling the northern pincer and inflicting considerable losses, but his own losses were heavy as well. On 5 July, the s.Pz.Abt.501 blew up its last Tiger and was withdrawn to Germany to refit.

However, 5.Panzer-Division could not hold off a tank army on its own and Burdeiny’s 2 TC slipped around south of Minsk virtually unopposed and began entering the city early on 3 July. A brisk fight followed but the Germans could not hold the city and Minsk was liberated by the end of the day. Burdeiny’s capture of Minsk isolated the remnants of AOK 4 and AOK 9 which were still east of the city and these formations were annihilated over the next few days. A breakout was attempted but very few units escaped the pocket and another 100,000 German troops were lost. Decker’s 5.Panzer-Division fought a brilliant delaying action but after losing more than 80 per cent of its tanks, it was compelled to retreat. Model literally had nothing left to work with – three of Heeresgruppe Mitte’s armies had been destroyed and the remaining fragments were too weak to hold anywhere. Without authorization from Hitler or the OKH, Model ordered his troops to fall back into Poland, realizing that his only option now was to trade space for time.

The collapse of Heeresgruppe Mitte created a cascading effect across the Eastern Front. Bagramyan’s 1st Baltic Front boldly pushed toward Polotsk, which was overrun on 4 July. Despite frantic efforts by Model and Heeresgruppe Nord to recreate a frontline in this sector, Bagramyan and Chernyakhovsky’s 3rd Byelorussian Front advanced into eastern Lithuania against minimal opposition. Vilnius was liberated on 13 July and Soviet armour was soon approaching Riga and the Baltic Sea, threatening to isolate Heeresgruppe Nord by 31 July. In the south, on 13 July Rokossovsky’s 1st Byelorussian Front and Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front struck Heeresgruppe Nordukraine, which had been weakened by transfers to Heeresgruppe Mitte. Rokossovsky committed three tank armies (1 GTA, 3 GTA and 4 TA), which smashed through the PzAOK 1. By this point, large numbers of T-34/85s were available and they outclassed both the Pz IV and the StuG-III. It still took two weeks to achieve a complete breakthrough, but then L’vov fell on 27 July. Konev’s and Rokossovsky’s forces surged into southern Poland while PzAOK 1 and PzAOK 4 survived by falling back into the Carpathian Mountains. Bogdanov’s 2nd Tank Army liberated Lublin then advanced toward the Vistula, but he was wounded on 21 July and General-major Aleksei I. Radzievsky continued the advance with the 8 GTC, 16 TC and 3 TC. On 27 July, the Soviet 8th Guards Army was able to gain a bridgehead over the Vistula at Magnuszew, south of Warsaw. By the morning of 31 July, the lead elements of two Soviet tank corps were just east of Warsaw – which sparked the Warsaw Uprising by the Polish Home Army.

Due to the amazing success of Bagration, virtually the entire German front was in retreat and the Red Army was on the verge of a historic military triumph. However, Soviet logistics were strained by an advance of over 500km in one month, and it became apparent that there were not enough trucks and transport planes to keep the forward tank units supplied. Furthermore, the OKH was rushing reinforcements to Model, including 12 Volksgrenadier-Divisionen, the Fallschirm-Panzer-Division Hermann Göring from Italy and the 19.Panzer-Division from Holland. The Hermann Göring had 64 Pz IV and 31 of the new Jagdpanzer IV assault guns, while 19.Panzer-Division had 81 Pz IV and 79 Panthers – a remarkably strong force. Guderian, the new head of the General Staff, helped to orchestrate a counter-attack against the 2 TA with these two fresh divisions and Wiking and Totenkopf on the morning of 1 August. By massing over 170 tanks, the Germans were able to badly maul the 3 TC in four days of tank battles around Wolomin and force 2 TA to pull back 20km. For the only time during the Second World War, Stalin deliberately exaggerated the extent of the German victory and claimed that 2 TA could not advance to Warsaw until its losses were replaced. In fact, the Red Army had considerable strength on the Vistula by 5 August, but Stalin wanted the Germans to destroy the Home Army to pave the way for a communist dictatorship in post-war Poland.

Elsewhere, the madcap Soviet advances of July came to a halt in August. Outside Riga, Saucken conducted Operation Doppelkopf on 15–27 August, with the XXXIX Panzerkorps (4. and 12.Panzer-Divisionen) and XXXX Panzerkorps (5., 7, 14.Panzer-Divisionen) against Bagramyan’s forces in an effort to reopen the rail line to Heeresgruppe Nord. After more than a week of fighting, the operation succeeded in capturing the town of Jelgava and re-opening land communications, despite the arrival of the 5 GTA. However, Hitler refused to allow Heeresgruppe Nord to retreat through the corridor and ordered them to remain in Estonia and northern Lithuania, so Doppelkopf proved a hollow tactical victory. The Germans were less successful in Romania, where the coup in Bucharest on 23 August led to Romania switching sides. In short order, AOK 6 was badly defeated and Malinovsky’s forces were able to roll into Romania against negligible opposition. The loss of the oil from the Ploesti oilfields further exacerbated the Wehrmacht’s worsening fuel crisis and ensured the end of large-scale mechanized operations.

In southern Poland, Konev’s forces had secured a crossing over the Vistula near Sandomierz on 29 July and began feeding elements of Katukov’s 1 TA into the bridgehead. Heeresgruppe Nordukraine mounted counter-attacks to eliminate the bridgehead, but without success. On 5 August, the reconstituted s.Pz.Abt.501 was sent to spearhead another counter-attack with 45 of the new Tiger II tanks. This was the combat debut of this new weapon on the Eastern Front and it was a disaster. Forced to make a 50km road march from the rail head to the front, 37 of 45 Tiger IIs broke down due to faulty final drives. When the counter-attack actually began, it did not go well. A single T-34/85 from the 53rd Guards Tank Brigade (6 GTC/3 GTA), commanded by Leytenant Aleksandr P. Oskin, was camouflaged in a corn field and spotted a platoon of three King Tigers approaching in column along a road. Oskin fired BR-365P APCR rounds from a range of just 200 metres against the turret sides of the lead two Tigers and destroyed both with four rounds each; the turrets of both King Tigers were blown off. The third King Tiger tried to retreat, but Oksin pursued and pumped a round into its engine compartment, disabling it. In the one-sided action, 11 of 15 German King Tiger crewmen were killed, the rest captured.^{48} The next day, the s.Pz.Abt.501 was forced to abandon another King Tiger, which was captured intact by the Soviets.

By the end of August 1944, the war in the East was decided, even though the Wehrmacht was able to temporarily create a new front. In an effort to get more tanks to the front, the OKH sent four Panzer-Brigaden, each with 36 Panthers, to the East in August 1944. These Panthers were the improved Ausf G model, which were less prone to engine fires, but the final drives still tended to fail after just 150km. In contrast, the Red Army was rapidly re-equipping its tank units with the T-34/85, which in competent hands could deal with any German tank. The Soviets not only had an overwhelming numerical superiority, but they were closing the gap in qualitative terms as well.

During the period June–August 1944, the Third Reich suffered catastrophic defeats on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. Altogether, the Wehrmacht suffered over 900,000 dead or missing in this period, which cost them the bulk of the combat veterans who had achieved the victories of 1940–42. After this point, the Wehrmacht could only continue to fight on for another eight months by scraping the bottom of the barrel. The Germans also lost 2,398 tanks in this three-month period, including 801 Panthers and 481 Tigers; these losses could not be replaced on a one-for-one basis because Allied strategic bombing on the tank factories and rail yards in Germany was finally causing a drop in German tank production. Without adequate fuel, veteran crews, spare parts or replacement tanks, the outlook for the Panzer-Divisionen was grim.

Compared to previous Soviet offensives, the Red Army did not pay an excessive price for its unprecedented gains during Bagration and the L’vov-Sandomierz operations; altogether 256,000 personnel dead or missing and 4,300 tanks lost. These losses would be made good in short order and the Red Army was gathering its strength for the final lunge into Germany.

Epilogue, September 1944–May 1945

Due to the drawn-out Polish rebellion in Warsaw, which the Germans were allowed to crush undisturbed, the Stavka decided to temporarily suspend operations in the centre of the Eastern Front and concentrate on the flanks. The 1st Baltic Front struggled to sever Heeresgruppe Nord’s lines of communication through Riga, but PzAOK 3 was reinforced and mounted another counter-offensive on 16 September with nearly 400 tanks – one of the last major German armoured operations of this size on the Eastern Front. However, the effort failed to remove the threat to the corridor and lost one-third of its tanks. The Red Army’s tank units were now plentifully equipped with the T-34/85 and even the JS-2 was available in significant numbers. Every time the Germans managed to scrape together an armoured force, it ran straight into a wall of anti-tank guns and was constantly attacked by Soviet fighter-bombers. The Luftwaffe could no longer protect the Panzer-Divisionen. After absorbing the German counter-attacks, the 1st Baltic Front began its own massive offensive on 6 October, using the 5 GTA as its battering ram. The 3 PzAOK disintegrated and retreated into East Prussia, while the 5 GTA reached the Baltic on 10 October. By 15 October, Riga fell and Heeresgruppe Nord was isolated in the Courland Peninsula, where it remained for the rest of the war. The 4. and 12.Panzer-Divisionen were among the isolated units. Instead of evacuating these two armies by sea to reinforce the defence of East Prussia, Hitler ordered them to remain where they were, although some units were evacuated in January 1945. Amazingly, the Soviets decided to keep attacking the Courland Pocket all winter – even though it made little military sense – and lost over 1,000 tanks for minimal gains.

The other major focus for the Stavka was the Balkans. Romania was completely occupied by the end of September and the 1st and 4th Ukrainian Fronts advanced into Hungary, while the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts marched into Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. The German PzAOK 1 and PzAOK 4 put up a stiff fight in the Carpathians, particularly at Dukla Pass in eastern Czechoslovakia in September. At Debrecen, the Germans managed a counter-attack that destroyed Pliev’s mobile cavalry-mechanized group, although this was just a tactical victory. Since AOK 6 had been destroyed yet again in Romania, the OKH decided to form a new 6.Armee, even though it only had the decimated 13.Panzer-Division and a single infantry division. Pursued by Tolbukhin’s forces, AOK 6 retreated into southeastern Hungary and by the end of October nearly half of Hungary had been overrun and Belgrade had been liberated. In November, Malinovsky’s 2nd Ukrainian Front made a push for Budapest, but did not encircle the city until 26 December 1944.

Amazingly, Germany succeeded in recreating fronts in both the east and west, while their opponents outran their supply lines. Yet instead of using this respite to rebuild his forces in the East, Hitler decided to allocate his remaining armoured reserves for a grand, nonsensical counter-stroke in the West in the Ardennes. All the best armoured units went to the Ardennes, leaving mostly burnt-out or untried divisions in the East. Yet the Ardennes offensive failed and squandered Germany’s last armoured reserves. In addition to ill-conceived counter-strokes, the Germans also decided to upgrade the Großdeutschland division to a corps-size formation, and the same was done with the Hermann Göring division; this was a foolish waste of resources on a few elite units while the rest of the Panzer-Divisionen were starved of replacements. The second division in Panzerkorps Großdeutschland, Panzergrenadier-Division Brandenburg, was poorly equipped and its Panzer-Regiment only had a single battalion equipped with a mix of Panthers, Pz IVs, Pz IIIs, assault guns and SPW half-tracks.^{49}

In early January 1945, Hitler mandated that AOK 6 would mount a relief operation to rescue the trapped forces in Budapest, which included the 13.Panzer-Division, Panzergrenadier-Division Feldherrnhalle and Hungarian 1st Armoured Division. Operation Konrad was hastily organized, with the IV SS-Panzerkorps (Totenkopf and Wiking) making two efforts to break through to the city but failing. Even with the addition of the 23.Panzer-Division and King Tigers from the s.Pz.Abt.503, the third attack also failed. A small number of troops escaped the city in a breakout effort, but the rest of the garrison surrendered on 13 February. The quality of German replacements dropped off sharply by late 1944, as youths were conscripted to replace combat veterans. Even the Waffen-SS was scraping the bottom of the barrel: 16-year-old Gunter Grass was conscripted in autumn 1944 and sent to join the SS-Frundsberg division in Silesia in early 1945. Grass was assigned to a unit with three Jagdpanthers but was given no training and panicked in his first taste of combat.^{50} Even as Germany deployed its best tanks and tank destroyers in the final hours of the war, it had few competent troops left to operate them.

Meanwhile, the German forces defending the Vistula were out-numbered 6–1 in armour, 5–1 in personnel and 8–1 in artillery. Indeed, the German defence in central Poland was little more than a reinforced screen. Zhukov and the Stavka spent months planning the Vistula-Oder operation and it was the best Soviet set-piece offensive of the war. Zhukov decided to use the Magnuszew and Pulawy bridgeheads as the springboards for the 1st Byelorussian Front’s attack on the rebuilt AOK 9. He brought up Katukov’s 1 GTA and Bogdanov’s 2 GTA to serve as his exploitation forces. The offensive began on the morning of 14 January 1945 with an artillery preparation that shattered two frontline Volksgrenadier-Divisionen and Zhukov’s troops advanced 20km on the first day. The AOK 9 committed its mobile reserve – the 19. and 25.Panzer-Divisionen from XXXX Panzerkorps – but their counter-attacks were too puny and uncoordinated. Zhukov committed Bogdanov’s armour on the second day of the operation and it created a broad wedge in AOK 9’s front. After four days of fighting, the German front broke wide open and Warsaw was occupied. In less than three weeks, Zhukov’s forces shattered Heeresgruppe Mitte and Heeresgruppe A and advanced 500km to the Oder River. Soviet losses were relatively light, but Soviet logistics were still inadequate despite the influx of large numbers of American-made trucks.

In March 1945, the Germans mounted their last offensive in the East near Lake Balaton, south of Budapest with the 6.SS-Panzerarmee, transferred from the West. Guderian wanted to use this armour to stabilize the main front in the east, but Hitler was focused on recovering ground in Hungary. Operation Frühlingserwachen (Spring Awakening) employed virtually all the Waffen-SS Panzer-Divisionen (LSSAH, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Wiking, Hohenstauffen and Hitler Jugend), elements of four Heer Panzer-Divisionen (1, 3, 6, 23) and two King Tiger battalions against Tolbukhin’s 3rd Ukraininan Front on 6 March. This operation saw the last major concentration of German armour, with almost 500 tanks (including 249 Panthers and 72 King Tigers) and 173 assault guns. After a brief initial period of success that achieved a 30km advance in two days, the offensive bogged down and was called off after 10 days. German material losses were crippling in this last offensive, leaving the panzer units involved in woeful state by mid-March.

The final campaign along the Oder River in April 1945 and the subsequent attack into Berlin was not the Red Army’s finest hour. Instead, Zhukov allowed his rivalry with Konev to affect his decision-making and Stalin goaded both men into a sloppy offensive that relied on mass, rather than skill. Zhukov’s decision on 16 April to commit the 1 GTA and 2 GTA into battle, even though the German defences on the Seelow Heights were still unbroken, resulted in massive Soviet casualties. Amazingly, Hitler had not anticipated a direct Soviet advance across the Oder and had left his best armoured units in Hungary, which left few Panzer units on the Oder. The SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland and 10 King Tigers from schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 503 were the only veteran armoured units to fight in the final battle for Berlin. Instead of elite units, the approaches to Berlin were defended by extemporized units such as Panzer-Division Müncheberg and Panzer-Division Kurmark, which were divisions in name only. The final German stand on the Oder and in Berlin involved only small amounts of armour, mostly assault guns, but the fanatical defence inflicted enormous losses on the Red Army, including nearly 2,000 tanks. The widespread introduction of the Panzerfaust proved deadly in Berlin and the Soviet use of so much armour in the dense urban terrain was a tactical error. Nevertheless, Zhukov and Konev used their armour to batter their way into Berlin and brought an end to the Third Reich.