Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket
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The Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket took place in the winter of 1944. The battle was fought on the Eastern Front between the forces of the German Heeresgruppe Süd and the Soviet 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts.
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January
In January 1944, the German forces of Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein’s Heeresgruppe Süd had fallen back to the Panther-Wotan Line, a defensive position along the Dniepr river in Ukraine. Two corps, the XI, the XLII Armeekorps and the attached Korps Abteilung B from the 8. Armee were holding a salient into the Soviet lines near the between the towns of Korsun and Cherkassy. Despite repeated warnings from Manstein, Hitler refused to allow the exposed units to be pulled back to safety.
Encirclement
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On 18 January, Manstein was proven right when General Nikolai Vatutin’s 1st and General Ivan Konev’s 2nd Ukrainian Front’s attacked the edges of the salient and surrounded the two German corps.
Trapped in the pocket were 56,000 men, a total of six German divisions, including the elite 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking and the SS Sturmbrigade Wallonien. The trapped forces were designated Gruppe Stemmerman and the commander of XI. Armeekorps, General der Artillerie Wilhelm Stemmerman was placed in charge.
Response
Manstein moved quickly, and by Early February the III and XLVII Panzerkorps were assembled for a relief effort. However, Hitler quickly intervened and ordered the rescue attempt to be transformed into an impossible effort to counter-encircle the two Soviet fronts.
General der Panzertruppen Hermann Breith, commander of III. Panzerkorps insisted that both the relief formations should unite and attempt to force a corridor to the trapped Gruppe Stemmerman. Unusually, Manstein sided with Hitler and the attack was to be an attempt to encircle the massive Russian force.
The XLVII Panzerkorps attack, led by the veteran 11. Panzer Division quickly stalled. Realising the encirclement was going to fail, Manstein ordered III. Panzerkorps to attempt to relieve the beleaguered Gruppe Stemmerman.
Led by the 1st SS Panzer Division and Oberstleutnant Dr. Franz Bake’s 503rd schwere Panzer Abteilung, the attack got underway in terrible conditions of the rasputitsa and soon encountered heavy enemy resistance from four Soviet Tank Corps, the IIIrd began to bog down in the thick mud of the rasputitsa.
On February 8, Breith ordered the attack to be renewed, this time led by the 16.Panzer division and Bake’s Abteilung. After heavy fighting, the exhausted force reached the Gniloy Tikich stream and established a small bridgehead on the eastern bank. The IIIrd could advance no further, Gruppe Stemmerman would have to fight it’s way out.
Kessel Fever
The 56,000 men of Gruppe Stemmerman had formed their defense around the town of Korsun, which had a single airstrip – the besieged units supply line. Orders from 8. Armee command came through
- Group Stemmerman will shorten the front lines and move the pocket in the direction of Shenderovka in order to be able, when the time comes, to break out towards the forces mounting a relief attack from outside.
Stemmerman immediately began pulling back troops from the north of the kessel (or Cauldron), and attacking south to expand towards the relief forces on the north bank of the Gniloy Tikich. The frenetic manoeuvring within the kessel confused the Soviets, convincing them that they had trapped the majority of the 8. Armee. The trapped forces, the troops suffering from kessel fever, were now to attack south, capturing the villages of Shenderovka, Novaya-Buda and Komarovka. Th 105th Regiment of the 72. Division was to take Novaya-Buda. The shattered regiment would have to attack uphill over an area with no cover, and with the enemy well entrenched. Major Kästner, the 105th’s commander decided upon a night assault. With fixed bayonets, the men moved silently forward, getting within meters of the enemy trench before being challenged by a Russian sentry. In fierce hand to hand combat, the 105th took the ridge in a matter of minutes.
By 15th February, the pocket had moved south and now rested on the village of Shenderovka, the point where the III Panzerkorps would relieve them. Shenderovka was heavily defended by the Soviets.
Breakout through Hell’s Gate
The III Panzerkorps was stuck. After several failed attempts to seize Hill 239 and advance on Shenderovka, the IIIrd was close to exhaustion. 8. Armee radioed Stemmerman
- Group Stemmerman must perform breakthrough as far as Zhurzintsy/Hill 239 by its own effort. There link up with III Panzer Corps.
The tragedy was that the message didn’t specify that the hill was still firmly in Soviet hands.
Stemmerman elected to stay behind with the rearguard, 4,000 men drawn from three divisions. The kessel was now only 3.5 kilometres in diameter, and the Russians could see every movement. Shenderovka, once seen as a gate to freedom, now became known as Hell’s Gate. The Russians poured artillery and rocket fire on the area around the encircled and exhausted Germans. On the evening of the 16th, Stemmerman received a communiqué from Manstein. It said simply,
- Watchword Freedom, objective Lysyanka, 2300 hours.
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At 2300 hours, in bitter cold, the men moved out in three columns. With men of the Wiking and the 105th Regiment in the lead, the formations moved silently through the darkness, with all going well until at 0330, at the foot of Hill 239, 105th’s reconnaissance patrol returned bearing grim news. The hill was occupied by Soviet T-34s of the 5th Guards Tank Army. Major Kästner ordered his men to again fix bayonets and the formation began to attack silently. All went well until a fleeing Russian fired his weapon. The Soviets turned on their searchlights to see the ground crawling with Germans. The tanks opened fire, cutting through the ranks. The Germans panicked and began an every man for himself run for freedom. The Soviet guns caused horrific casualties, however relief soon came in the form of Panzers from III Panzerkorps, who had heard the fighting and were attacking to provide whichever help they could. Soon after, the Panthers of the 1. Panzer Division had cleared the ridge, and a way out had been created.
Slaughter and Courage
The Russians, realizing that the Germans were escaping, began an all-out assault to close the corridor. The horrors of Hell’s Gate claimed the lives of many Germans. Several acts of amazing heroism occurred, including an Oberfeldwebel Krause single-handedly halting a tank attack on a column of German wounded, and Oberstleutnant Müller, galloping ahead of his men on horseback, leading an attack of 3,000 men to save members of Wiking and Wallonien from the roving T-34s. No quarter was given by either side, the T-34s running down wounded men and those who surrendered. The battles around Hell’s Gate exemplified the brutality of Eastern Front combat.
By morning, the majority of Gruppe Stemmermann had reached the Gniloy Tikich river, now turbulent and swollen by the melting snow. Despite the fact that 1. Panzer had captured a bridge, and engineers had erected another, the panicking men saw the river as their only escape. Closely pursued by Soviet tanks, the men plunged into the icy waters, and many were drowned by the raging torrent. When Wiking commander Herbert Otto Gille attempted to form a human chain across the river, alternating between those who could swim and those who could not, hundreds of men died when someone’s hand slipped and the chain broke. In the words of Paul Carrel, author of Scorched Earth,
- The Gniloy Tikich, that raging torrent, revealed the hidden aspects of the human soul - the precipices of fear, the caverns of cowardice, but also the shining peaks of heroism, comradeship and self-sacrifice
Panzers eventually arrived and drove back the T34s. By the 17th, most of the fighting had died down.
All told, roughly 35,000 of the 56,000 men trapped in the pocket escaped. The Russians had failed to destroy the two German corps, but they had put them out of action. All the heavy equipment and vehicles were left behind around Korsun, and many of the survivors had no weapons. Six German divisions were neutralised. The battle officially ended on 19 February, with what could be described as a sort of Pyrrhic victory for both sides.
See also
- Additional maps:
- Korsun Pocket game by the Strategic Studies Group
External links
- US ARMY Historical Study - Operations of Encircled Forces, German Experiences in Russia (http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/BOOKS/WWII/20234/20234.html)