2. Waffen-55 Panzer Battles on the Eastern Front 1943-1945
Tifil Ripley ~ DTpublishing 1VUICompany
3. This edition first published in 2000 by MBI Publishing
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ISBN 0-7603-0937-X Printed in Hong Kong For Brown Partworks Limited
8 Chapel Place Rivington Street London EC2A3DQ Editor: Peter Darman
Picture research: Antony Shaw Design: Brown Partworks Maps: Mark
Walker Production: Matt Weyland
4. CONTENTS Acknowledgements Key to maps Map list 7 8 9
Introduction: Hitler's Guard 10 Chapter 1: Winter Tempest 18
Chapter 2: Wallen-55 - Panzer Elite 28 Chapter 3: Kharkov 48
Chapter 4: Kursk 76 Chapter 5: Death Ride of the Totenkopf 112
Chapter 6: The Fuhrer's Fire Brigade 126 Chapter 7: Death on the
Dnieper 140 Chapter 8: Kessel Battles 152 Chapter 9: Holding the
Line 166 Chapter 10: Spring Awakening 176 Chapter 11: The Bitter
End 194
5. Appendices Waffen-SS ranks 200 Waffen-SS divisional insignia
201 Armoured fighting vehicle and artillery capabilities 202 I SS
Panzer Corps' order of battle 206 Army Group South average tank
strength February 1943 208 Soviet order of battle in the Ukraine,
February 1943 209 II SS Panzer Corps' order of battle, July 1943
210 Soviet forces at Prokhorovka, 12 July 1943 211 German Sixth
Army order of battle, July 1943 212 Soviet order of battle, Mius
Front, July 1943 213 German forces in the Kharkov sector, August
1943 214 Soviet order of battle west of Kharkov, August 1943 215
German XXXXIV Panzer Corps' order of battle, November 1943 216
German orders of battle, Cherkassy Pocket, February 1944 217
Hohenstaufen and Frundsberg Divisions orders of battle 218 I SS
Panzer Corps LSSAH and Hitlerjugend orders of battle 219
Bibliography 220 md~ ll1
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is dedicated to the heroes of the
Red Army's XVIII and XXIX Tank Corps, who first engaged II SS
Panzer Corps at Prokhorovka in the titanic tank battle on 12 July
1943. For the next two years, brave Soviet tank crews of these two
fine units would be in the vanguard of driving Hitler's Waffen- SS
panzer elite back into the heart of the Third Reich, so freeing
Europe of Nazi tyranny for good. The author would like to thank the
following people for their help during the researching and writing
of this study. Neil Tweedie of The Daily Telegraph, for his unique
insights into Nazi mentality; the Imperial War Museum records staff
in London for their help with research into German World War II
documents; the British Army Staff College, Camberley, for allowing
me access to rare German World War II records in their possession;
Stewart Frazer for proof-reading my text; Pete Darman, of Brown
Partworks, for at last giving me the opportunity to fulfil my
long-held ambition to write about the Eastern Front; and finally,
Mr McAlpine, my history teacher, for begin- ning my interest in
World War II history.
7. Key to maps Military units - types infantry armoured
motorized infantry/ panzergrenadier Military units - size xxxxx D
army group/front xxxx D army xxx D corps xx D division III D
regiment Military movements ....... Soviet attack I I I ~ Soviet
retreat ....... German attack I I I ~ German retreat General
military symbols Soviet frontline Soviet defensive line Soviet
pocket or position German frontline German defensive line Military
unit colours Geographical symbols D Soviet Germany o German pocket
or position Road River Urban area U Urban area Country
boundary
8. List of maps Eastern Europe and the western Soviet Union 15
The German summer offensive of 1942 20 The offensive of the Soviet
Don, Stalingrad and Southwest Fronts, November 1942 24 Strategic
situation in the Kharkov area, January 1943 52 Situation east and
south of Kharkov, 10-13 February 1943 54 Soviet advances to the
north and south of Kharkov, 15 -February 1943 59 Soviet and German
attacks south of Kharkov. Position on 24 February 1943 64 Offensive
operations of the Grossdeutschland Division, I SS Panzer Corps and
XXXXVIII Panzer Corps against Kharkov, 7-10 March 1943 72 Soviet
defensive belts in the Kursk salient, July 1943 87 Waffen-SS and
German Army assaults south of Kursk, 4-7 July 1943 95 II SS Panzer
Corps approaches Prokhorovka, 9-11 July 1943 102 Prokhorovka on 12
July 1943 - the high watermark of Operation Citadel 108 Eliminating
the River Mius bridgehead, July 1943 119 The Soviet offensive in_
the Kharkov sector, early August 1943 129 Situation in the Belgorod
and Kharkov sectors, 11-12 August 1943 135 Situation in the Kharkov
area, 23 August 1943 137 Leibstandarte operations near Radomyschl,
November 1943 146 The recapture of Radomyschl, 26 November to 23
December 1943 150 The Totenkopf Division stabilizes the front near
Kirovograd, 10-16 January 1944 155 The breakout from the Cherkassy
Pocket through the Lyssinka bridgehead, 11-20 February 1944 158
German units in the Kamenets Podolsk Pocket, March 1944- 162
Operation Bagration, June 1944 169- IV SS Panzer Corps' attempt to
relieve Budapest, January-February 1945 180 Soviet offensives in
Hungary, Czechosl~vakia and Austria, March-April 1945 192
9. INTRODUCTION: HITLER'S GUARD The ethos of the Waffen-SS and
the war on the Eastern Front. T he Eastern Front was the decisive
theatre of operations during World War II. The pivotal point came
in mid-1943, when the Red Army and Nazi Germany massed the largest
tank forces in the history of modern warfare for a titanic clash of
armour. At the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, millions of troops and
thousands of tanks clashed in an epic engagement. The Red Army's
~efences held and Adolf Hitler's panzer armies were stopped in
their tracks. Over the next 21 months, having gained the strategic
initiative, the mighty Red Army surged forward into the heart of
the Fuhrer's Thousand Year Reich. Standing in the way of the
Russians was an increasingly belea- guered and battle-weary
Wehrmacht, its divisions understrength and its reserves largely
spent. When crises threatened, Hitler turned to the elite panzer
divisions of the Waffen-SS. Time and again they were thrown into
desperate holding actions and counterattacks to plug gaps in
Germany's Eastern Front. As a result, they soon became known as the
Fuhrer's "Fire Brigade". As the war progressed, these actions
became more forlorn until even the die-hard Waffen-SS commanders
could see that their cause was lost. This book tells the story of
the actions of the Waffen-SS Leibstandarte, Das Reich, Totenkopf,
Wiking, Hitlerjugend, Hohen- staufen and Frundsberg Divisions on
the Eastern Front between 1943 Left: Two young crew members of a
Hummel self-propelled howitzer belonging to the 9th SS Panzer
Division Hohenstaufen. The average age of the division, including
officers, was 18.
10. Right: Two officers who had a major influence on the
development of the Leibstandarte Division: 55- Oberstgruppenflihrer
und Panzer Generaloberst der Waffen-SS Josef "Sepp" Dietrich (left)
and SS-Brigadeflihrer Fritz Witt. and 1945. These include their
dramatic suc- cesses during the German counteroffensive after the
surrender at Stalingrad, along with the preparations for the Kursk
Offensive. The key role in Operation Citadel, the codename of the
German attack, of the Waffen-SS panzers is explained using newly
available original sources which throw fresh light on the course of
the battle. During the eight months after the failure at Kursk, the
Waffen-SS panzers were deployed again and again to try to prevent
Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's Army Group South from being
overwhelmed by thousands of Soviet tanks. In battle after battle,
the Waffen-SS destroyed hundreds of T-34s, only to encounter scores
of new Red Army tank brigades on the winter battle- fields of the
Ukraine. While the bulk of the Waffen-SS panzer force was pulled
back from the East to counter the D-Day landings in France in June
1944, the Totenkopf and Wiking Divisions remained behind to help
defend Poland during the summer and autumn of 1944. After the
failed Ardennes Offensive, Hitler ordered the Waffen-SS panzers to
mass in Hungary during January 1945 in a bid to break the Soviet
siege of Budapest. The subsequent offensive was the death ride of
the Waffen-SS panzers, and within a few weeks the morale of the
once proud elite
11. armoured force was broken for good. Shattered, they headed
west to escape Soviet vengeance. In their brief existence, the
Waffen-SS panzer divisions established for themselves a reputation
as some of the most formidable formations in the history of
armoured war- fare. While some historians have tried to att'ribute
their battlefield success to their abundant supplies of the best
tanks and other material, this is a simplistic analysis. The
Waffen-SS panzer divisions may have been new to armoured warfare in
early 1943, but their men learnt fast and were soon able to execute
many complicated and difficult battlefield manoeuvres. The key to
their success was undoubted- ly their unique esprit de corps, which
enabled them to absorb thousands of casualties and still keep on
fighting in the face of over- whelming odds. Time after time,
Waffen-SS divisions were rebuilt after suffering some- times in the
region of 75 percent casualty rates. This amazing feat was due to a
num- ber offactors. Principally, it was down to the dynamic
leadership of a cadre of junior and senior commanders. Key
Waffen-SS compa- ny, battalion and regimental commanders were all
in their late twenties or early thir- ties. These men were almost
all fanatical pre- war Nazi Party members who believed in the
racial superiority of the German "master race", and many were
proteges of Hitler himself or other senior Nazi leaders. Waffen-SS
officers were a breed apart. They were charismatic and vigorous,
gener- ating loyalty and unwavering obedience from subordinates. At
the same time, they made a point ofnot displaying fear or nerves in
public. Most had been wounded several times in battle, but they
managed to gener- ate an aura of indestructibility. No matter how
many tight scrapes they got into, these men still made their troops
feel that no harm would come to them as long as they stuck close
and did not waver. In Nazi INTRODUCTION Below: Superb shot of a
Leibstandarte Division Tiger I on the Eastern Front in 1944. It is
covered in zimmerit anti- magnetic paste to stop antitank charges
being placed on the hull.
12. Left: Infantry and panzer officers of the Wiking Division
on the Eastern Front in 1944. The division, which contained a
substantial number of Scandinavian and West European volunteers,
maintained a consistently high combat record under commanders such
as Felix Steiner, Herbert Gille and Johannes- Rudolf Muhlenkamp.
Junior Waffen-SS officers held the power of life and death over the
populations of occupied countries Germany, being an officer in the
Waffen-55 brought with it immense power and privi- leges. Even
junior Waffen-55 officers held the power of life and death over the
civilian pop- ulations of occupied countries, and they were not
afraid to use that power if the occasion merited. The mere sight
ofan 55 uniform was enough to turn even the most defiant Russian
civilian into a cowed slave. Away from the frontline, Waffen-55
officers and soldiers lived the high life. Their Fuhrer may have
been a tee-total vegetarian, but his elite troops knew how to live
life to the full. Nazi propaganda broadcasts, newsreels and
magazines turned Waffen-55 officers into celebrities, which further
fuelled their egos. The result was a heady mix of super confi-
dence, verging on arrogance. The Waffen-55 panzer leaders learned
their trade during the Blitzkrieg years of vic- tories in 1939-41,
so that by the spring of 1943 they were battle hardened from
earlier campaigns in the West and Russia. Key com- manders moved up
the ladder of promotion between the various divisions, and so got
to know each other well. Although this meant rivalry, it also
resulted in senior commanders knowing their subordinates' strengths
or foibles before units entered battle. This meant that, in the
heat of battle, Waffen-55 panzer units could be quick- ly combined
or placed under the command of different divisions with the minimum
of disruption or confusion. The ability to regroup at short notice
on a battle- field to meet a new threat, or begin a new offensive,
was often a decisive factor in bring- ing victory. Thus by the
summer of 1943, the Waffen-55 panzer divisions had grown into
well-oiled professional fighting machines. The elite Waffen-55
divisions soon proved themselves to be skilled practitioners
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