Stalin's General (31 page)

Operations Kutuzov, Rumiantsev, and Suvorov—named after three great Russian commanders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—were part of a summer offensive intended to push the Germans back along a broad front. In the south the aim was to advance to the River Dnepr—the next natural line of defense for the retreating Army Group South. The Red Army reached and crossed the Dnepr by early autumn and the offensive then developed into a general campaign to liberate the entire Ukraine from German occupation. As Evan Mawdsley has put it, the second battle of Ukraine (the first having taken place in summer 1941) “was extraordinary in its scope. It was the longest campaign of the war, fought over eight months … between August 1943 and April 1944. And it took in a vast territory, as the Wehrmacht retreated first to the Ostwall of the Dnepr River, and then far beyond it to the Carpathian Mountains and the 1938 border with Poland.”
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No fewer than five Soviet Fronts were involved in operations: the Voronezh, the Steppe, the Southwestern, the Southern, and the Central. In October 1943 the first four of the aforementioned were renamed the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, while the Central became the Belorussian Front. Zhukov was centrally involved throughout all phases of the battle for Ukraine, initially as Stavka coordinator of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts and then as the commander of the 1st Ukrainian. (See
Map 21
: The Battle for the Ukraine, 1943–1944
.)

The Ukrainian campaign was not without its problems and setbacks and there were some uncomfortable moments between Zhukov and Stalin. Now that the war had turned decisively in the Soviets' favor and the Red Army had at its disposal forces vastly superior to those of the Germans, Stalin was more demanding of success from his commanders. One general point of tension was that Zhukov favored a campaign based on selective encirclements and then destruction of concentrated enemy groupings, as had happened at Stalingrad. Stalin
was skeptical, knowing that encirclement maneuvers were susceptible to enemy counterattack or breakout operations, as had happened many times already. For political reasons also Stalin preferred a broad front advance that would liberate as much Soviet territory as quickly as possible. By now Zhukov knew that it was a waste of time to argue with Stalin when the dictator had his mind made up.
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On August 26, 1943, the Central, Steppe, and Voronezh fronts began a series of offensives collectively known as the Chernigov-Poltava operation, which aimed to advance toward Kiev and the Dnepr. By mid-September the Red Army was nearing the river along a broad front. At this point the combined offensive entered a new stage with an attempt to seize and hold substantial bridgeheads north and south of Kiev on the western side of the Dnepr with the aim of surrounding and then recapturing the Ukrainian capital. Troops from all three fronts crossed the river but the main effort was by the Voronezh Front in the Velikii Bukrin area south of Kiev. This bridgehead was supported by a daring drop behind German lines of two airborne brigades. On September 28 Zhukov, hitherto Stavka coordinator of the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts, was appointed Stavka coordinator of the Voronezh and Central Fronts. One of his first acts was to redraw the operational boundaries between the two Fronts so the task of taking Kiev fell now to Vatutin's Voronezh Front—where Zhukov himself was based—rather than to Rokossovsky's Central Front. This angered Rokossovsky, who phoned Stalin to complain. The Soviet dictator brusquely replied that it was Khrushchev and Zhukov's idea.
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Khrushchev was Ukraine's top communist leader and the political commissar of the Voronezh Front and it is not difficult to see why he would have wanted Vatutin's troops to have the honor of ejecting the Germans from Kiev. Nor is it difficult to imagine Zhukov wanting to share the limelight, too. Zhukov worked closely with Khrushchev during the battle for Ukraine and they got on well. However, in the section of his memoirs dealing with this period Zhukov did not mention the future Soviet leader at all, except for a disparaging reference to the fact that you could always get a good meal wherever Khrushchev was to be found!
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Zhukov was tasked by Stalin to capture Kiev by October 7,
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but this proved to be a bridge too far. The paratroopers were unable to
hold their ground and it was difficult to expand the Bukrin bridgehead in the face of strong German opposition. On October 24 Zhukov reported to Stalin that the reason for the 1st Ukrainian (Voronezh) Front's lack of success so far was that the terrain favored defense rather than attack. Enemy defenses were deep and the Germans were determined, Zhukov told Stalin. Zhukov sought permission to pause the offensive and requested more ammunition and the allocation to the Front of an additional field army and a tank army. Stalin was not satisfied with Zhukov's explanation and replied with a mild rebuke: “Stavka would like to point out that the failure of the offensive on the Bukrin bridgehead was the result of the failure to take into account local conditions, which make offensive action difficult, especially for a tank army. The reference to insufficient ammunition has no basis since the Steppe Front had no more ammunition but … has managed to accomplish its tasks.” Stalin did, nevertheless, agree to strengthen the 1st Ukrainian by the allocation of additional forces to enable it to capture Kiev quickly.
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The new timetable was to recapture the Ukrainian capital by November 7—the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. In accordance with Stavka's instructions, the focus of the offensive shifted from Bukrin to another bridgehead on the west bank of the Dnepr at Lutezh, north of Kiev. The attack began on November 3 with the greatest artillery barrage so far seen on the Soviet-German front—2,000 guns and mortars with fifty Katyusha rocket launchers, 480 guns to the mile—one third of the entire artillery strength of the 1st Ukrainian.
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Within three days Kiev fell to the Red Army and Zhukov and Vatutin were able to telegram Stalin: “Immensely happy to report that the task set by you to liberate our beautiful city of Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, has been accomplished by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front. The city of Kiev has been completely cleared of the Nazi invaders.”
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Like Kharkov, Kiev had been devastated: 6,000 buildings and 1,000 factories plundered or destroyed; 200,000 civilians killed and another 100,000 deported.
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Just outside Kiev, at Babi Yar, was the site of one of the most infamous massacres of the Second World War, where 30,000 Jews were shot by the SS in retaliation for the Germans killed by the delayed-action time bombs the Red Army left behind in
the city center when it evacuated the Ukrainian capital in September 1941.

After the recapture of Kiev the Soviet offensive in Ukraine continued and by the end of 1943 the Red Army had consolidated its positions west of the Dnepr, pushing the Germans back fifty to eighty miles.

In December Zhukov was recalled to Moscow to take part in a high-powered Supreme Command conference. Stalin had just returned from the Tehran summit with Churchill and Roosevelt at which they had promised Stalin that western Allied forces would, at long last, invade northern France in summer 1944. It was also agreed to coordinate the strategic operations of the USSR and its Western allies and Stalin pledged to support the Allied invasion of France by launching a major offensive on the Soviet-German front around the same time.

The Supreme Command conference in Moscow, attended by Stalin, Zhukov, Vasilevsky, and Antonov, by General Staff officers and by members of the Soviet political leadership, was convened to assess the strategic situation and agree on a plan of action for the next set of large-scale operations. At the conference the General Staff presented statistics on the results of the war so far. By the end of 1943 half of all Soviet territory occupied by the Germans had been liberated. Since Stalingrad the Germans had lost 56 divisions and suffered devastating damage to 162 others. While the Wehrmacht no longer had the capacity to wage large-scale offensive warfare, it could sustain an active defense: Germany and its allies still had an army five million strong with 54,500 guns and mortars, 5,400 tanks and assault guns, and more than 3,000 planes. Despite cumulative losses that far exceeded those of the German, the Soviet armed forces had 30 percent more manpower, 70 percent more artillery, and 230 percent more aircraft. (It also had the advantage of greatly increased supplies from the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, and other allies.)

While in Moscow Zhukov dined with Stalin in the dictator's private Kremlin apartment. On one such occasion Zhukov again raised the issue of encirclement operations, as opposed to broad front advances, and Stalin indicated that he was more favorably disposed toward them now that the Red Army was stronger and more experienced.
While the conference decided to mount a winter offensive along a broad front, from Leningrad in the north to the Crimea in the south, the focus was to be the operations of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Ukrainian Fronts and the aim of liberating the entire Ukraine west of the Dnepr.
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In mid-December Zhukov returned to the 1st Ukrainian Front and at the end of the month Vatutin's troops launched the Zhitomir-Berdichev operation, designed to push the Germans further from Kiev. A month later Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Front launched a joint operation with the 1st Ukrainian to eliminate a German salient in the Korsun-Shevchenkovskii area. Zhukov supervised both operations, later claiming that it was his idea to encircle the Germans in the Korsun-Shevchenkovskii salient with a two-Front pincer movement.
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The encirclement operation was successful but tightening the ring proved more difficult as the Germans refused to surrender. Stalin was not happy about the delay and blamed Zhukov, sending him a stinging rebuke on February 12:

A few hours later Stalin sent Zhukov another message telling him that Konev had been given responsibility for liquidating the Korsun-Shevchenkovskii grouping and that his new task was to protect Konev's operation from a German attempt at a breakthrough from outside the ring.
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It took Konev about a week to tighten the Korsun-Shevchenkovskii ring and destroy the German force trapped in the encirclement. Stalin ordered an artillery salute in Moscow in honor of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. “Not a word was said about the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front,” complained Zhukov later. “I feel that was a mistake on the
part of the Supreme Commander. There is no denying that success in surrounding and destroying an enemy grouping depends on the action of both the inner and outer Fronts; in this instance, equal success was achieved by the brilliant action of both Fronts—Vatutin's and Konev's.”
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Vatutin was a dedicated and well-liked officer. Zhukov was fond of him and in his memoirs went out of his way to defend Vatutin's reputation. He was shocked to learn on February 29, 1944, that Vatutin had been ambushed and shot by anti-Soviet Ukrainian nationalists. The next day Zhukov was appointed commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front in his place. Vatutin was hospitalized in Kiev, and Stalin flew in the chief surgeon of the Red Army to treat him, but two weeks later he died of his wounds.

The 1st Ukrainian Front was Zhukov's first direct operational command since the battle of Moscow. His mission was to continue the offensive in western Ukraine and reach the River Dnestr, thereby cutting off the retreat of Army Group South into Romania. On March 26
Krasnaya Zvezda
carried an editorial extolling Zhukov's latest exploits: “During the past days the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of Marshal Zhukov has achieved a new series of outstanding victories over the enemy.… The art of Soviet commanders and the determination of Soviet troops has once again foiled the plans of the Germans.… These victories are a victory for both our valour and our skill.… In London the radio is broadcasting that events in the Ukraine are a catastrophe for Nazi Germany.”
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The fighting in the Dnestr area continued for several more weeks but Zhukov's attention was increasingly focused on planning for the Red Army's next grand strategic operation: Bagration.

Operation Bagration was devised to surround and destroy Army Group Center—the Wehrmacht's last major intact force on the Eastern Front—and to expel the Germans from Belorussia. As with all the spectacularly successful Red Army operations of the Great Patriotic War the authorship of the plan is a matter of some dispute. According
to General Shtemenko, the chief of operations, the plan was drafted by the General Staff in April–May 1944 aided by the relevant Front commanders. Particularly important, in Shtemenko's view, was the contribution made by Rokossovsky, commander of the 1st Belorussian Front (formerly the Central Front).
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According to Zhukov, however, the basic idea of an envelopment of Army Group Center in Belorussia was proposed by him during a meeting in Stalin's office on April 22.
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However, according to Stalin's appointments diary Zhukov did not meet Stalin at all during March or April 1944. If such a meeting took place, it must have been somewhere else in the Kremlin. What is known is that on May 15 Stalin issued an order stating that in view of the possibility that Zhukov could be called upon to “lead the actions of several fronts” he was relieving him of his “temporary” command of the 1st Ukrainian.
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His replacement as commander of 1st Ukrainian was Konev. It is also known that on May 25, 26, and 27, Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Antonov, Shtemenko, and other senior officers had three lengthy meetings with Stalin.
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It must have been then that the final decisions regarding Operation Bagration were taken. A few days later—on May 31—directives were issued to the relevant Fronts instructing them to draw up detailed operational plans for Bagration's implementation. These directives were signed by Zhukov as well as Stalin, reaffirming his high status among the dictator's generals and marshals and indicating, perhaps, that his role in devising the operational concept behind Bagration was as important as he later claimed.
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Bagration—named after a Georgian hero of the Napoleonic Wars—involved a combined attack by four Fronts: the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Belorussian and the 1st Ukrainian. The 1st Belorussian was to advance in the direction of Baronovichi, Brest, and Warsaw; the 2nd Belorussian toward Minsk; and the 3rd Belorussian to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. In support were the Leningrad and Baltic Fronts and Konev's 1st Ukrainian. Operations were to begin with the Leningrad Front's advance into Finland in early June, followed by a surprise attack in Belorussia later that month and then an advance by the 1st Ukrainian in the direction of Lvov to prevent the transfer of enemy forces from the southern sector. (See
Map 22:
The Plan for Operation Bagration, June 1944
.) Between them the four main Fronts had 2.4 million troops, 5,200 tanks, 36,000 artillery pieces, and 5,300 military
aircraft, giving the Soviets a two-to-one superiority over the Germans in personnel, six times as many tanks, and four times as many planes and artillery.