Third Battle of Kharkov

• 1. Introduction

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  The Third Battle of Kharkov began on the 19th of February 1943, when Field Marshal Erich von Manstein launched a counterstrike that few in the Red Army expected. Soviet forces had swept through German lines for weeks. They had retaken Kharkov, Belgorod, Kursk, Voroshilovgrad, and Izium. Stavka, the Soviet high command, believed it could decide the war in the southwest. Then everything reversed. Manstein's three SS Panzer divisions drove south, flanked the over-extended Soviet spearheads, and methodically destroyed them. By the 15th of March, Kharkov was back in German hands after four days of house-to-house fighting that left the city shattered and tens of thousands of soldiers dead on both sides. Military historian Bevin Alexander later called it "the last great victory of German arms on the Eastern front." Whether that description holds up is a question this documentary will examine. What is beyond dispute is that the battle reshaped the Eastern Front and set the stage for the largest tank battle in history at Kursk four months later.

• 2. A Wehrmacht in Crisis

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  On the 2nd of February 1943, the commanding officers of the German 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad. An estimated 90,000 men became prisoners of the Red Army that day. German losses at Stalingrad, not counting prisoners, ran between 120,000 and 150,000. Those numbers sit inside a larger collapse. Throughout 1942, German casualties across all fronts totaled around 1.9 million personnel. By early 1943, the Wehrmacht stood roughly 470,000 men below full strength on the Eastern Front alone. The armored situation was equally dire. At the start of Operation Barbarossa, Germany had equipped its forces with around 3,300 tanks. By the 23rd of January 1943, only 495 tanks remained operational along the entire Soviet-German front, and most were older models. Hitler appointed a committee composed of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Martin Bormann, and Hans Lammers to recruit 800,000 new able-bodied men. Half of those men were to come from what the directive called "nonessential industries." The effects of that recruitment drive would not be felt until around May 1943. In the meantime, Manstein would have to make do with what he had.

• 3. Soviet Overreach

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  Operation Star and Operation Gallop, launched in January and early February 1943, had pushed the Germans back across a vast arc of territory. Soviet forces retook Kharkov on the 16th of February and threatened Zaporizhia on the Dnieper River, where Army Group South had its headquarters alongside Luftflotte 4. Stavka read these gains as signs that the war in the southwest Russian SFSR and eastern Ukrainian SSR could be decided outright. That confidence masked a serious problem. Months of continuous operations had ground down Soviet divisions to shadows of their authorized strength. Divisions in the 40th Army averaged between 3,500 and 4,000 soldiers each. Some divisions in the 69th Army could count on only 1,000 to 1,500 men. Certain units had as few as 20 to 50 mortars for fire support. The Voronezh Front had received only 1,600 replacements since the start of operations in 1943. Manstein's 350 tanks outnumbered Soviet armor almost seven to one at the point of contact, and his forces were far better supplied with fuel. Lieutenant-General Markian Popov's mobile group, spearheading the Soviet drive, had already crossed the Donets River and driven deep into the German rear. That depth would become a trap.

• 4. Manstein's Three Stages

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  Manstein laid out a three-stage plan when Hitler flew to his headquarters at Zaporizhia. The first stage called for destroying the Soviet armored spearheads that had over-extended themselves. The second stage targeted Kharkov itself. The third stage envisioned an attack on Soviet forces at Kursk in conjunction with Army Group Center. That final stage was ultimately called off. The spring thaw, known as the Rasputitsa, combined with Army Group Center's reluctance to participate, ended it before it began. The first stage opened on the 19th of February, the same day Soviet armored units broke through German lines and came within some 30 km of the Zaporizhia airfield. Between the 20th and the 23rd of February, the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler cut through the Soviet 6th Army's flank, eliminating the threat to the Dnieper River and surrounding a number of Red Army units south of the Samara River. The SS Division Totenkopf entered action on the 22nd of February, advancing parallel to Das Reich, and the two divisions cut the supply lines feeding the Soviet spearheads. The 1st Panzer Army surrounded and pocketed Popov's Mobile Group by the 24th of February. A sizable contingent of Soviet troops managed to escape northward, but the spearhead that had alarmed the entire German southern flank was effectively gone. By the 6th of March, the SS Division Leibstandarte had established a bridgehead over the Mosh River, opening the road to Kharkov.

• 5. Hausser Defies Orders

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  On the 10th of March, the 4th Panzer Army under General Hermann Hoth issued orders to the SS Panzer Corps to take Kharkov as quickly as possible. Manstein's intent was to encircle the city from the north rather than assault it directly. General Paul Hausser, commanding the SS Panzer Corps, had a different idea. His plan sent Das Reich in from the west, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler from the north, and assigned Totenkopf to screen the northern and northwestern flanks. Hoth ordered Hausser to stick to the encirclement plan. Hausser disregarded the order and pressed his direct assault. Soviet defenses forced him to postpone the attack by one day, but by the early morning of the 11th of March, the LSSAH launched a two-pronged attack into northern Kharkov. The assault hit hard. On the right side of the Belgorod-Kharkov railroad, the 2nd Battalion advanced only as far as the Severnyi railway yard by end of day. On the left side, a T-34-led Soviet counterattack drove part of the 1st Battalion back out of the city. Only with support from Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers and StuG assault guns did the German infantry manage to claw a foothold. Hoth repeated his order to disengage Das Reich at 15:00 on the 11th of March, and again at 00:15 on the 12th. Hausser refused both times. A third attempt by Hoth finally produced compliance, and Das Reich disengaged using a corridor opened by the Leibstandarte.

• 6. Four Days in the City

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  On the 12th of March, the LSSAH broke through Soviet defenses in the northern suburbs and began a house-to-house fight toward the city center. By evening, the 2nd Panzergrenadier Regiment's 2nd Battalion had surrounded Dzerzhinsky Square at heavy cost from Soviet snipers and entrenched defenders. The square was renamed "Platz der Leibstandarte" once taken. That night, the 3rd Battalion, under the command of Joachim Peiper, linked up with the 2nd Battalion in Dzerzhinsky Square and attacked southward, crossing the Kharkiv River and establishing a bridgehead that opened the road to Moscow Avenue. On the 13th of March, the LSSAH struck south from Peiper's bridgehead, clearing Soviet resistance block by block. The 1st Battalion of the 1st SS Panzergrenadier Regiment re-entered the city along the Volchansk exit road. Peiper's forces broke out southward through bitter fighting and linked up with the division's left wing at the Volchansk and Chuhuiv road junction. A single Panzergrenadier Regiment from Das Reich remained behind to clear the southwestern corner, finishing by the end of the day. By the 14th of March, the entire city was declared back in German hands. Fighting continued for two more days in the tractor works factory complex in the southern outskirts. By the 15th of March, the SS Division Leibstandarte had completed the city's recapture. The SS Panzer Corps had suffered approximately 4,300 enlisted personnel killed and wounded, along with around 160 officers, representing an estimated 44% of its fighting strength by the 17th of March.

• 7. Aftermath and the Road to Kursk

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  German forces drove to Belgorod on the 17th of March and captured it the following day. The recapture of both cities created a salient in the Soviet lines. In July 1943, that salient would trigger the Battle of Kursk. Red Army losses in the Donets Campaign ran to more than 80,000 personnel casualties; an estimated 45,200 were killed or went missing, and another 41,200 were wounded. Muddy weather and exhaustion forced Manstein's forces to halt soon after Belgorod fell. Between April and July 1943, the Red Army rebuilt its forces and prepared for the German offensive it knew was coming. Historians have disagreed sharply about what Kharkov actually proved. Military historian Robert Citino called it "not a victory at all," borrowing from Mungo Melvin's book on Manstein to describe it instead as a "brief glimpse of victory." Citino's view was that the Donets Campaign succeeded only against an enemy that had already over-extended itself, and that it produced no lasting strategic gain. Hitler, for his part, drew a different lesson. After Kharkov, he was presented with two options: the "backhand method," which called for absorbing the next Soviet offensive and then counterattacking, or the "forehand method," a preemptive strike against the Kursk salient by Army Groups South and Center. Hitler chose the forehand. That choice, at a salient shaped directly by the events of March 1943, would consume over two million soldiers in the summer battles that followed.