Hitler's Panzer Armies on the Eastern Fron (34 page)

The six months preceding Operation Citadel had been both eventful and an emotional rollercoaster for Hoth’s men. Their under-resourced attempt to break into the Stalingrad pocket had not been to help the Sixth Army escape, but to make it so Paulus could continue attacking once reconnected to the rest of the Ostheer. Their early start surprised the Soviets but could not assure success. Likewise, the loss of Rostov was not due to overwhelming pressure on Fourth Panzer and Armeeabteilung Hollidt, but because von Manstein wanted to withdraw these units over the Mius River and eventually use the panzer army for his planned ‘castling’ maneuver. In February, 1943, Hoth’s command numbered about 125,000 men and approximately 250 panzers, and it was ready to restore the caved-in eastern front. These were operational tasks of great significance befitting a panzer army. By March, it had largely repaired the damage caused by Stavka’s post-Stalingrad offensives, and in four weeks had destroyed 567 tanks, 1,072 guns, killed 40,000 Red Army men and captured a further 12,000. The Soviets had lost 30 percent of their 1942–43 gains.
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How would the upcoming operations go?

By mid–1943, the Wehrmacht already spoke of the Defense of the Fatherland, even though they were still hundreds of kilometers deep inside the Soviet Union. Operation Citadel started off as just part of a coherent and somewhat reasonable campaign plan for 1943. The plan underwent numerous delays, and
if von Manstein had had his way, the offensive would have been cancelled in favor of husbanding Germany’s valuable, and limited, mechanized reserves for the Soviet offensive all knew was coming. Fourth Panzer Army was given pride of place as Citadel’s Schwerpunkt. Barely a week prior to its start date, Hoth’s headquarters opined that with each delay, chances of success declined. Nevertheless, the panzer army commanded an impressive mass ofpanzers, with Kempfs two panzer corps covering its right flank and Ninth Army launching a supporting attack from the north, the whole enterprise was well buttressed by Luftwaffe CAS. Hoth wielded a massive armored hammer: II SS Panzer Corps with SS Leibstandarte (100 Pz III/IVs, 13 Tigers and 34 Sturmgeschutze), SS Das Reich (113 Pz III/IVs, 14 Tigers, 34 Sturmgeschutze), SS Totenkopf (104 Pz III/IVs, 15 Tigers and 27 Sturmgeschutze) plus XLVIII Panzer Corps with Grossdeutschland (67 Pz III/IVs, 46Tigers and 34 Sturmgeschutze), 11th Panzer (74 Pz III/IVs), 3rd Panzer in reserve near Kharkov (56 Pz III/IVs and 32 ‘older’ panzers) plus a new (formed only on 23 June) and massive formation, 10th Panzer Brigade (1 battalion of 45 Tigers and Panzer Battalions 51 and 52, with a total of 200 Panthers) and Assault Gun Battalion 911. The LII Corps (57th, 255th and 332nd Infantry Divisions) covered the panzers’ left.
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Hoth’s 1,176 AFVs faced 1,699 of the Voronezh Front. Luftflotte Four and VIII Fliegerkorps contributed 1,100 aircraft, including 7 Stuka Geschwader. To their front, the Red Army had provided the ideal target for a blitzkrieg operation: a massive defensive force. Unfortunately for the Germans, they were clueless about the sophistication, depth and strength of the defense. Thanks to their spy network, on the other hand, the Soviets were well informed regarding German intentions.
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In the predawn hours of 5 July Hoth visited his troops in their jumping-off positions. To 11th Panzer he stressed the seriousness of the coming offensive: the Germans had always held the enemy’s toughness in high regard, but after Stalingrad they had new respect for his skill, too. The day started with the usual artillery barrage and CAS missions, but the Soviets sent counterbattery fire back over the German lines and the Red Army Air Force was also very active. Weather became a factor as well, but Hoth’s men advanced through the first Soviet defenses and into the second. They used better techniques than did Model, leading with their Tiger and Panther tanks in order to protect the older marks of panzers and half-tracks from the devastating power of the extensive and well-positioned anti-tank defenses. The two forward Soviet armies, 6th Guards and 7th Guards, deployed nearly sixteen anti-tank guns per kilometer in their first echelon and fourteen guns per kilometer in their second. Towed by American lend-lease trucks, these deadly weapons, up to 76mm in caliber, were mobile and difficult to nail down. Vatutin withdrew according to plan
without suffering massive losses usually expected in the first phases of a German offensive. Fourth Panzer, applying armored wedge tactics, achieved a penetration 30km deep and 30km wide at its base, but was outpacing Kempf’s flank guard which struggled forward without much Luftwaffe support. That first night, Voronezh Front rushed the 1st Tank Army behind the 6th Guards, facing Hoth. The Landsers were skeptical that the ‘wonder weapon’ Panthers would have the desired effect. Sure enough, on 5 July, Panzer Battalion 52 (formerly 1st Battalion of Panzer Regiment 15 – 11th Panzer Division) lost 30 percent of its Panthers to all causes, mostly due to enemy action and mechanical failure. On the 6th, a Pz IV of the 3rd Battalion, Panzer Regiment 15, destroyed a Panther because the crew did not recognize the new vehicle as German.
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Despite Citadel’s inauspicious start, the Germans had high hopes.

Surprising the Soviets with Citadel had been out of the question, the salient and the German preparations against it had just been too obvious, therefore a prime consideration of blitzkrieg operations was forfeited from the beginning. By the second day, Hausser’s progress of a mere 5km was described as ‘good’. Slow progress of Armeeabteilung Kempf continued to arouse concern, and necessitated diverting SS Totenkopf from II SS Panzer’s spearhead to security duties on Hoth’s increasingly insecure right. Luftwaffe sorties dipped from 1,958 on Citadel’s first day to 899 on the second. Conversely, the number of Soviet sorties rose to 1,632. Grossdeutschland took the lead of von Knobelsdorff’s XLVIII Panzer in an attempt to create a Kessel deep in the Soviet rear by linking up with II SS near Iakovlevo. Kursk was still well over 100km away and Model’s progress paled even compared to Fourth Panzer’s modest advances. On the morning of 7 July, Hoth threw 700 AFVs against the 1st Tank Army, at one point cramming 500 vehicles onto a front 6km wide. Stukas from VIII Fliegerkorps darkened the sky above, but Sturmoviks wreaked havoc among the attackers as well. Luftwaffe losses in 2 days amounted to greater than 100 aircraft, but the Germans had blasted a sizeable hole in Vatutin’s lines and were deep into his second echelon (of 8 belts). The Army’s XLVIII Panzer could not move as quickly as the better equipped SS divisions and failed to spring the trap at Iakovlevo, allowing three Soviet corps to escape. They approached Oboyan, the lynchpin of Vatutin’s defenses. The 8th represented the last day of meaningful German progress as von Manstein tried to lever the Soviets out of their stout positions. But even on that day, vigorous counterattacks by mobile reserves released by Stavka forced the Germans back in a number of places. Soviet CAS was overwhelming, and all defensive efforts seemed to concentrate on Hausser’s spearheads. German intelligence calculated they had destroyed over 500 tanks in 4 days but that Vatutin still had 1,500 remaining.
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Von Manstein thought he could overpower the Soviet’s defenses by widening the breech, so on 9 July ordered Hoth to send Grossdeutschland peeling off to the left in attempt to destroy the 6th Tank Corps. On the same day the panzer army commander decided to change plans and shift his main effort northeast, and have II SS Panzer attack toward Prokhorovka. To Hoth this option represented the indirect approach to Kursk, and if he could secure the cooperation of Kempf’s III Panzer Corps, could enjoy decent chances of success. Little did he know that he would be turning his forces directly into the 5th Guards Tank Army; Soviet intelligence had noticed the switch from Oboyan to Prokhorovka. The little railroad station gave its name to the engagement that is often considered the signature of the Kursk battle. Hausser got off to a slow start on the morning of 10 July, because a few hours were not enough to concentrate his three divisions. No assistance came from Kempf, nor would von Manstein acquiesce to Hoth’s request that Second Army launch a supporting attack in order to draw off Soviet forces. Poor weather on the second morning minimized Luftwaffe CAS, so the struggle became one of tank versus tank. The Germans considered 400 of their panzers against 800 Red tanks even odds. While Leibstandarte and Totenkopf made acceptable progress, Das Reich lagged. The Germans initially enjoyed range and killing power advantages from the Tiger’s 88mm guns and the Stuka’s 37mm ‘tank-busting’ cannons. Therefore Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank lined up, fender-to-fender, and raced forward in order to close with the Tigers and allow their greater numbers to shift the odds. Prokhorovka became a graveyard: 400 tanks and 320 panzers and Sturmgeschutze littered the countryside. Fourth Panzer now calculated it had destroyed over 1,000 tanks in a week. The SS had won bridgeheads over the Psel and Donets. To Hoth this was even more a reason to slip around to the east with Kempf’s III Panzer Corps. Again, Hitler would not hear of it. Hoth could not even use his own XLVIII Panzer; just as von Knoblesdorff was about to add his strength to Hausser’s, Vatutin sent the 22nd Guards Rifle Corps into his flank. Hitler knew what von Manstein, Hoth, Kempf and others did not: Citadel was dead. He told von Manstein and Model as much when he summoned them to Rastenburg on the 13th.
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While Germany had no more reserves, it seemed that the Soviets had an endless supply. Citadel, like the Ardennes Offensive over a year later, can technically be considered an operational-level maneuver. Forfeiting surprise and attacking into the Soviets’ defensive strength, Fourth Panzer had only the slimmest chances of success, odds that a few hundred Tigers and Panthers could not appreciably improve. Hoth may have believed that with a bit more will power he could have prevailed, but he could not see the big picture across
the front. And for Germany the war had just taken a serious strategic turn: on 9 July the western Allies invaded Sicily, their first incursion onto the home territory of a major Axis power.

Operation Citadel had been a German failure by any and every measure. It did not meet any of its objectives. It greatly weakened the Ostheer, especially in mechanized forces and did not appreciably damage the Red Army. The Soviets promptly came back with a vengeance and the German retreat would not end for twenty months until they reached Berlin and could go no farther. In fact, Citadel had been so non-threatening to the Soviets that Stavka had been able to deflect its feeble blows and then almost immediately counterattack. The fact that its plan closely mirrored that of von Manstein was not lost on many Germans. On 14 August, Hoth told his men to assume a defensive posture, dig in, cinch down their helmets and destroy any panzers that could not be towed to repair shops. Within a week of Hitler’s cancellation of Citadel, the Soviets launched attacks of their own in the Orel and Mius River sectors. During the last week of July, the Italian king arrested and replaced Mussolini so Hitler stepped up the transfer of military formations from the USSR to Italy, further weakening already stretched German forces there. During the second half of the month, Vatutin made good many of the losses incurred during Citadel, and completed his own preparations and made ready for his next move. For his Operation Rumantsev, he commanded 980,000 men to the panzer army’s 210,000, plus 12,627 guns and 2,439 AFVs, practically 10 times the 250 panzers and Sturmgeschutze available to Hoth. At 0500 hours on 3 August, elements of the Voronezh, Steppe and Southwest Fronts attacked (Stavka ‘coordinator’: Zhukov), obliterating the 167th Infantry Division on the Fourth Panzer boundary with Armeeabteilung Kempf. Though poorly trained, the masses of frontovicki easily created a 16km gap, and by 1300 hours Vatutin could confidently deploy his exploitation force: the reconstituted 1st and 5th Guards Tank Armies. Rumantsev completely caught German intelligence by surprise (they had figured the Soviets would need months to recover from Citadel), so von Manstein had quickly to recall SS Das Reich and Totenkopf from the Mius, plus XXIV and XLVIII Panzer Corps from elsewhere in the army group, where he had sent them just weeks earlier. Two days into the new counteroffensive 1st Tank Army had raced far ahead of its infantry and support elements, and in conjunction with the 6th Guards and 27th Armies, had created a small encirclement near Graivron.
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About the same time, Grossdeutschland started showing up at Achtyrka (joining combat as soon as its vehicles rolled off the rail cars) and the 3rd Panzer also joined Hoth’s order of battle. Between 7–9 August, XLVIII Panzer
counterattacked to save their trapped comrades. Vatutin’s men had slowed down and were not creating any new penetrations, but the hole separating Hoth from Kempf had grown to over 50km. The men of Fourth Panzer put up a stout defense and Vatutin sought a way around this obstacle. The Soviets crossed the Merchik River near Valki, where Breith’s III Panzer had dug in well to the west of Kharkov. Vatutin kept up slow but steady progress and by the 11th had cut the Poltava–Kharkov rail line in numerous places. The commander of Grossdeutschland’s assault-gun battalion described the fighting east of Achtyrka on 12 August:

In the morning, it must have been 0300, a sentry reported tank engine noise on the north edge of the village. I went immediately on a motorcycle and determined that it must be Russian T–34s. I strengthened security on the north edge with two Smrmgeschutze. Mainly, I alerted the rear services to be ready to march. I made the remaining guns ready for action. I clarified the situation in the morning twilight. I could see a task force of twenty to thirty T–34s with mounted infantry north of us getting ready to attack Achtyrka. In any case, more Russian T–34s are deployed with security in the grain fields to the west. Some of the crews have dismounted to rest. Since we have no infantry support, I decide to escape to Achtryka. I figure that this enemy battle group, especially the infantry, can pursue us, and since we are alone we are not ready to fight in a village. Since our reconnaissance did not report any enemy movement from the south of Achtyrka, I ordered my adjutant, Lieutenant Bauer, to take our wheeled elements to the town, being careful to avoid any combat. I would take the assault guns and attempt to relieve the situation in front of Achtyrka from the northern route. So we raced from the north part of the village west toward Achtyrka. As soon as we were undetected 200-300 meters from the flanks of the enemy tanks, we opened fire. We shot up the totally surprised T-34s. I counted five of them burning. The T-34s further back took up the fight. One of our guns was hit on the flank and destroyed ... We broke off the engagement and fled under heavy fire to Achtyrka where we had cover from friendly PAKs and panzers.
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