First Battle of Kharkov
The First Battle of Kharkov was settled within a single week, from the 20th to the 24th of October 1941. Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, the famous Soviet writer, later described what the city had become: "I saw Kharkiv. As if it were Rome in the 5th century. A huge cemetery..."
Kharkov lay in the Ukrainian SSR, and the fight for it came during the final stage of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The German 6th Army, part of Army Group South, faced the Soviet Southwestern Front.
Why did the Germans drive so hard for this one city? What were the Soviet defenders actually protecting? And what happened to the people left behind once the guns fell quiet?
On the 1st of May 1941, Kharkov counted 901,000 residents. By September, evacuees fleeing the war in other cities had pushed that figure to 1.5 million.
Rail lines through Kharkov tied the Crimea, the Caucasus, the Dnieper region, and the Donbass to one another and to the rest of Ukraine. Its air connections added to its value. Few cities in the Soviet Union worked so well as a crossroads running both north-south and east-west.
The Kharkov Tractor Plant was the emblem of the city's industry, and it played a key part in the design and development of the Soviet T-34 tank. Alongside it stood the Kharkov Aircraft Plant, the NKVD's plant known as FED, and the Kharkov Turbine Plant.
Su-2 aircraft, artillery tractors, 82mm mortars, submachine guns, and ammunition all came out of these workshops. German planners therefore wanted both the railways and the factories.
Adolf Hitler himself stressed the value of such installations. He saw the Donets Basin, which stretches out from the Kharkov area, as the foundation of the Russian economy. The Germans believed that seizing it would bring that economy down altogether. Holding on to the Kharkov industrial area became something they fought for fiercely.
Some 600,000 Soviet prisoners of war from the Battle of Kiev had to be processed by the German 6th and 17th Armies. That burden forced both armies into a regrouping period of three weeks.
After Kiev, the German Army High Command, known as the OKH, ordered Army Group Center to redeploy for the attack on Moscow. The 2nd Panzer Group turned north toward Bryansk and Kursk. Army Group South, built around Walther von Reichenau's 6th Army and Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel's 17th Army, took command of the Panzer divisions left behind.
Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist's 1st Panzer Group was the main offensive formation of Army Group South. Under Führer Directive No. 35, it received orders to head south toward Rostov-on-Don and the Caucasian oil fields. It secured the German victory at the Battle of Melitopol.
Stavka, the Soviet High Command, responded by pouring reinforcements into the ground between Kursk and Rostov. It drew them from the forces standing in front of Moscow. The Southwestern Front, decimated at Kiev, was rebuilt under Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, known as one of the Red Army's most capable commanders. The 6th, 21st, 38th, and 40th Armies were reconstituted almost from scratch.
On the 6th of October, von Reichenau led an advance through Sumy and Okhtyrka toward Belgorod and Kharkov. At the same time, the 17th Army attacked from Poltava toward Lozova and Izyum to protect the long flank of the 1st Panzer Army, as the 1st Panzer Group was now called. The Soviet 6th Army under Rodion Malinovsky and the 38th Army under Viktor Tsiganov were pushed back in disarray.
Defeats at Vyazma and Bryansk cost the Red Army 700,000 casualties. The few reserves that remained were urgently needed to defend Moscow, so the Southwestern Front had no one to fill its gaps. The Soviets retreated to Voronezh to stop their southern flank from collapsing.
The German priorities before winter were Leningrad, Moscow, and the approaches to the Caucasian oil fields. Kharkov ranked only as a secondary objective. Even so, taking it would protect the flanks of the motorized spearheads and deny the Soviets a major industrial center and rail junction.
Capture would also push the armies of the Southwestern and Southern Fronts back toward Voronezh and Stalingrad, away from their main transportation hubs. For the 6th Army, it would close the growing gap between itself and the 17th Army.
By the second week of October, the Rasputitsa mud season and supply problems between the Dnieper River and the front lines had slowed the offensive. Every road bridge had collapsed, and the threat of ice complicated efforts to replace them with pontoons. After the 17th of October, night frosts firmed up the roads. Snow and cold then troubled soldiers equipped only for autumn, because planners had expected Barbarossa to be finished before winter.
To make sure of Kharkov, Hitler pulled resources away from the 17th Army and gave them to the 6th. That weakened the 17th Army's protection of the 1st Panzer Army's flank and contributed to the German defeat at the Battle of Rostov.
General der Infanterie Erwin Vierow's LV. Armeekorps received the job of storming Kharkov. On paper it had three divisions. The 101st Leichte-Division, under Generalleutnant Josef Brauner von Haydringen, would advance from the north. The 57th Infanterie-Division, under Generalmajor Anton Dostler, would come from the south. The 100th Leichte-Division took no part in the battle.
Hauptmann Kurt von Barisani's Sturmgeschütz-Abteilung 197, an assault gun battalion, sent two of its three batteries to the 57th Infanterie-Division. There they provided close fire support during the attack.
The defenders were thinly supported. The Soviet 216th Rifle Division had been re-established in Kharkov after its destruction at Kiev. It received little or no help, because the 38th Army was in strategic retreat and planned to hold the city only until the factory equipment had been evacuated.
By the 21st of October, the 101st Light Division stood about six kilometers west of Kharkov. Its spearhead, the 228th Light Regiment, held the front with its 1st and 3rd Battalions and kept the 2nd Battalion in reserve. On the 22nd, the regiment was sent out to gauge enemy strength. Around noon, a Soviet infantry battalion with tank support attacked it. The Germans drove off the attack and disabled two tanks.
On the night of the 22nd of October, reconnaissance reports reached division headquarters. They showed that the 216th Rifle Division had taken position on the western edge of the city. Its men had added machine gun nests, mortar pits, and minefields.
The 3rd Battalion, on the regiment's right flank, was strengthened with two guns from the 85th Artillery Regiment, a company of engineers, and an 88 mm anti-aircraft gun. The 2nd Battalion received the same, minus the anti-aircraft gun. The 1st Battalion of the 229th Light Regiment was assigned to secure the left flank of the 228th.
Noon was the planned hour of attack, timed to match the movements of the 57th Infantry Division. A delay in the readiness of the 85th Artillery forced a postponement. Meanwhile, the anti-tank company, which had been stuck in mud behind the lines, finally reached the front. It was ordered to give each frontline battalion a platoon of 37mm anti-tank guns. At 14:25 the artillery was ready, and the attack was reset for 15:00.
A total of 320 trains had carried equipment out of 70 large factories. The evacuation of the industrial plants began before the Germans arrived and was nearly complete by the 20th of October 1941.
The 6th Army's interest in Kharkov was never only about industry. The Germans also wanted the city to close the growing gap between themselves and the 17th Army.
On the 24th of October 1941, the 57th Infantry Division took control of Kharkov for von Reichenau's 6th Army. By then, most of the city's industrial facilities had been evacuated or rendered useless by Soviet authorities. The first German occupation of Kharkov would run until the 16th of February 1943.
Kharkov was kept out of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the German civil administration in occupied Ukraine, because it lay so close to the front. Instead, the staff of the LV Army Corps acted as the occupation authority, with the 57th Infantry Division serving as the occupation force.
Generalmajor Anton Dostler held the post of Stadtkommandant, or city commandant, until the 13th of December. Generalleutnant Alfred von Puttkamer then succeeded him. The city passed to the Heeresgebiet of the 6th Army, which was its rear area, under the joint authority of the Stadtkommandant and Field Command 757.
The Reichenau-Befehl of the 10th of October was effectively an order to execute anyone associated with Communism. German troops acted under its authority and terrorized the people who remained after the battle. Corpses of Soviet commanders were displayed on balconies to frighten the survivors. Many fled, and chaos spread through the city.
In the early morning of the 14th of November, timer devices left behind by the retreating Red Army blew up several buildings in the city center. The dead included Generalleutnant Georg Braun, commander of the 68th Infantry Division, and his staff. The Germans answered by arresting about 200 civilians, mostly Jews, and hanging them from the balconies of large buildings. Another 1,000 people were taken hostage and held in the Hotel International on Dzerzhinsky Square. Front-line Wehrmacht commanders, not SS troops, committed these war crimes.
On the 14th of December, the Stadtkommandant ordered the Jewish population confined to a shantytown near the Kharkov Tractor Factory. Within two days, 20,000 Jews had been gathered there. Sonderkommando 4a, commanded by SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel of Einsatzgruppe C, began shooting them in December and kept killing through January.
The unit also used a gas van altered to hold 50 people. It drove around the city while carbon monoxide from its own engine was channeled into an airtight compartment. The victims died from a combination of carbon monoxide poisoning and suffocation.
That same winter brought another threat, and it came from the army's demands for food.
By January 1942, about one-third of the 300,000 inhabitants still in Kharkov were starving. The German army had confiscated large quantities of food for its own troops, which created acute shortages across Ukraine. Many people died during the harsh winter months.
The city's buildings and culture suffered as well. The fighting left Kharkov in ruins. Many architectural monuments were destroyed, and artistic treasures were looted.
When the city was retaken in August 1943, only between 180,000 and 190,000 people were left living there.
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Common questions
When was the First Battle of Kharkov fought?
The First Battle of Kharkov was fought from the 20th to the 24th of October 1941. It took place during the final stage of Operation Barbarossa.
Who fought in the First Battle of Kharkov?
The German 6th Army, part of Army Group South, fought the Soviet Southwestern Front. The Soviet 38th Army was tasked with defending the city.
Why was Kharkov strategically important in the First Battle of Kharkov?
Kharkov was a major rail and air junction and one of the largest industrial centers in the Soviet Union. Its Tractor Plant helped design the T-34 tank, and its factories produced Su-2 aircraft, mortars, submachine guns, and ammunition.
Who won the First Battle of Kharkov?
Germany won the First Battle of Kharkov. The 57th Infantry Division took control of the city on the 24th of October 1941, though most of its industrial facilities had already been evacuated or made useless.
How many factories were evacuated from Kharkov before the German capture?
A total of 320 trains carried equipment out of 70 large factories. The evacuation began before the Germans arrived and was nearly complete by the 20th of October 1941.
What happened to civilians in Kharkov after the First Battle of Kharkov?
German troops terrorized the remaining population, and about 200 civilians, mostly Jews, were hanged from balconies after the 14th of November explosions. In December, 20,000 Jews were confined near the Kharkov Tractor Factory, and Sonderkommando 4a killed them by shooting and with a gas van.
How long did the German occupation of Kharkov last after the First Battle of Kharkov?
The first German occupation of Kharkov lasted from the battle until the 16th of February 1943. The city was retaken in August 1943, when its population had fallen to between 180,000 and 190,000.
All sources
12 references cited across the entry
- 3Glantz 2001, p. 140.
- 4Glantz 2001, p. 151–152.
- 5Margry 2001, p. 5
- 6Kirchubel 2003, p. 76.
- 7Margry 2001, p.6
- 8Margry 2001, p. 8
- 9JournalОУН у Харкові за часів окупаціїAnatoly V. Skorobogatov — 1999
- 10Margry 2001, p. 8-9
- 11Margry 2001, p. 9
- 12First Battle of KharkovPeter Chen — 2004–2007