Battle of Uman
The Battle of Uman began on the 15th of July 1941 and lasted just over three weeks, yet in that time the Wehrmacht encircled and destroyed two entire Soviet armies. The 6th and 12th Soviet Armies, caught in a pocket near the Ukrainian city of Uman, sent word to Stalin on the 1st of August that they had no reserves, no ammunition, and that their fuel was running out. The encirclement was already complete.
How did two Soviet armies collapse so swiftly? The answer lies in a chain of German armored thrusts, a command structure that could not adapt to what was happening on the ground, and a series of Soviet counterattacks that came too late or aimed at the wrong axis. The battle unfolded in the broader context of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and was fought within a part of that campaign known as the Kiev defensive operation. What followed at Uman would reveal just how dangerous it was for a retreating force to be flanked on multiple sides at once.
Army Group South, commanded by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, had spent the opening weeks of Operation Barbarossa driving east through Ukraine at a pace that shocked Soviet planners. At the Battle of Brody, fought from the 23rd to the 30th of June, German forces defeated several Soviet mechanized corps and opened the road deeper into Ukraine.
The Soviet Southwestern Front fell back toward the Stalin Line, a belt of fortifications along the old Soviet-Polish border of 1939. On the 7th of July, the XXXXVIII Motorized Corps cracked a weak section of that line and pushed through. By the 16th of July, the 11th Panzer Division had made a breakthrough 70 kilometers deep to the south-east, crossing the Ros River and capturing Stavishche.
To the north, the III Motorized Corps reached the approaches to Kiev, which was protected by its own fortified area. A dispute inside the German high command shaped what came next. Hitler and OKH pressed for a strike southward to encircle Soviet forces in conjunction with the 11th Army, while the Army Group's own commanders had their eyes on Kiev. The compromise that emerged pointed forces toward Belaya Tserkov and then southwest, leaving the door open for further operations east of the Dnieper. That indecision would have consequences: at the opening of the Uman battle, the encircling task from the north and east fell primarily to the XXXXVIII Motorized Corps alone, with the XIV Motorized Corps transferred south to assist.
Marshal Semyon Budyonny commanded the Soviet Southwestern Direction, the umbrella over the forces that would be caught at Uman. Beneath him, Colonel General Mikhail Kirponos led the Southwestern Front and General Ivan Tyulenev commanded the Southern Front. The 6th Army was under Lieutenant General I. N. Muzychenko and the 12th under Major General P. G. Ponedelin.
The Soviet formations that entered this battle were already badly worn. Most had withdrawn under constant Luftwaffe attack from the Polish border. The mechanized units, once the Red Army's pride, had been ground down to roughly the size of a single corps after the Brody fighting. Their infantry was now fighting on foot, stripped of the machines that made mechanized warfare possible.
On the German side, the 1st Panzer Group had also taken significant losses in equipment, but it held its fighting edge. The large German and Romanian infantry formations were pushing from the west to link up with the armored units, while the Hungarian Mechanized Corps also played a role in the encirclement's southern arc. The 17th Field Army, which included a Slovak mobile command of brigade size, pressed from the west against the retreating Soviet 6th and 12th armies.
Franz Halder, the chief of OKH, watched the opening moves of the Uman battle with growing irritation. On the 18th of July he wrote that the Army Group South operation was "increasingly losing its shape," and complained that the enveloping flank of the 1st Panzer Group was still "hang about in the area of Berdichev and Belaya Tserkov."
The 26th Soviet Army, newly formed and not yet fully concentrated, had managed to capture Fastov briefly and slowed the XIV Motorized Corps around Belaya Tserkov. The Soviet 2nd Mechanized Corps, transferred from the Southern Front, attacked the 11th Panzer Division and halted its drive on Uman. Halder found himself admitting: "The enemy again found a way to withdraw his troops from the threat of an emerging encirclement."
Halder's concern ran even deeper. The 17th Field Army was advancing from the west faster than the panzers could close from the east and north, which raised the possibility that a future encirclement ring would snap shut on only a thin slice of Soviet forces. The Soviet 12th Army nearly escaped a smaller trap near Vinnytsia when a fresh mountain rifle division arrived from the Southern Front, allowing roughly 50,000 troops to retreat across the Southern Bug River by the 21st of July. The corridor they used would not stay open much longer.
By the 25th of July, German infantry had caught up with the panzer spearheads and freed the armored units to resume their drive. The III Motorized Corps, released from its positions near Kiev, moved to Belaya Tserkov and finally crushed the attempts of the 26th Army to maintain a continuous front. The XIV Motorized Corps turned southeast.
On the 25th of July the XXXXIX Mountain Corps launched the 125th Infantry Division and captured Gaisin. The following day the 1st Mountain Division advanced 70 kilometers to the southeast in a single day, placing itself behind the Soviet lines. On the 31st of July the 1st Mountain Division took Golovanevsk, roughly 45 kilometers south-southeast of Uman. That same day, Soviet troops abandoned Uman itself.
The 6th and 12th armies were now contained in a roughly 40-by-40-kilometer box, surrounded on all sides except the south. But even that gap would close. On the 2nd of August, units of the 1st Mountain Division reached the Sinyuha River and linked up with the 9th Panzer Division of the XIV Motorized Corps, forming the first joining of the ring. The ring was reinforced the following day when the German 16th Panzer Division met the Hungarian Mobile Corps at Pervomaysk, a second junction that made the encirclement far harder to break.
On the 1st of August, with the encirclement complete, the commanders of the 6th and 12th armies sent a joint message to the Southern Front command, with a copy to Stalin. The message was stark: the encirclement was finished, there were no reserves, no ammunition, and the fuel was nearly gone.
General Tyulenev of the Southern Front told Stalin the situation would be restored by striking toward the pocket with the newly formed 223rd Rifle Division from the northeast and the 18th Army from the south. What followed exposed the depth of the Soviet command's misjudgment. The 223rd Rifle Division, barely trained, was struck without warning by the 14th Panzer Division and quickly destroyed. Pervomaysk, the city from which the 18th Army was supposed to launch its relief attack, had fallen on the 3rd of August, but the Southern Front command never informed the trapped forces of this fact.
By the evening of the 4th of August, Stalin's conversations with Front commander Kirponos had shifted almost entirely to building a defensive line along the Dnieper. The fate of the two encircled armies came up only when Kirponos raised it himself. By the 5th of August the pocket holding roughly 65,000 Soviet troops had shrunk to a square of about 10 by 10 kilometers, every meter of it under German fire.
On the night of the 6th of August, Soviet forces made a breakout attempt toward the south, believing the 18th Army waited on the other side of the XXXXIX Mountain Corps positions. The 6th Army assembled its remaining tanks into a column designated "Special Task." The column punched through the initial German lines, marched 20 kilometers, and briefly retook Golovanevsk. Then it ran into units of the LII Army Corps and the 9th Panzer Division.
The "Special Task" column was destroyed. General Muzychenko, commander of the 6th Army, was captured. The following night, forces from the 12th Army and the 2nd Mechanized Corps tried again, this time striking to the east and northeast. Only small detachments managed to slip through. General Ponedelin, commanding the 12th Army, was taken prisoner after his tank was knocked out. The commander and commissar of the 2nd Mechanized Corps escaped the encirclement, but only several months later.
On the afternoon of the 7th of August, Soviet troops gathered in the forests near the Green Brama forest began to surrender. Among those captured were the commanders of both armies, four corps commanders, and eleven division commanders. From the 28th of July these remnants had been combined under the name "Ponedelin Group," a designation that within days became a name for a force that no longer existed as a fighting formation.
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Common questions
When did the Battle of Uman take place?
The Battle of Uman was fought from the 15th of July to the 8th of August 1941. It lasted just over three weeks and took place during the opening phase of Germany's Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front.
Which Soviet armies were destroyed at the Battle of Uman?
The German encirclement at Uman destroyed the Soviet 6th Army, commanded by Lieutenant General I. N. Muzychenko, and the 12th Army, commanded by Major General P. G. Ponedelin. Both commanders were captured when the pocket collapsed in early August 1941.
Who commanded German forces at the Battle of Uman?
German Army Group South was commanded by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. The armored spearheads that drove the encirclement came from the 1st Panzer Group, whose motorized corps carried out the main encircling thrusts around Uman.
How large was the Soviet force trapped at Uman?
By the 5th of August 1941, roughly 65,000 Soviet troops remained in the pocket, which had contracted to approximately 10 by 10 kilometers and was entirely under German fire. The trapped forces included the remnants of the 6th Army, 12th Army, and 2nd Mechanized Corps, collectively known as the Ponedelin Group.
Why did the Soviet breakout attempts from Uman fail?
The breakout attempts failed because the encircling German ring was stronger than Soviet commanders understood. The Southern Front gave the trapped armies incorrect information, including the false belief that Pervomaysk still held and that the 18th Army could relieve them from the south. In reality Pervomaysk had fallen on the 3rd of August, and the 18th Army had retreated. The "Special Task" column that broke through on the night of the 6th of August was ultimately stopped by the LII Army Corps and 9th Panzer Division.
What role did the Green Brama forest play in the Battle of Uman?
The forests near the Green Brama became the final refuge of the encircled Soviet forces. On the afternoon of the 7th of August 1941, Soviet troops sheltering there began to surrender. Among those captured at this stage were the commanders of both the 6th and 12th armies, four corps commanders, and eleven division commanders.
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1 references cited across the entry
- 1book1941. Победный парад Гитлера. Правда об Уманском побоищеRunov — Яуза: Эксмо — 2017