The Battle of Korsun–Cherkasy
The battle of the Korsun–Cherkasy pocket was fought in the course of the Soviet Dnieper–Carpathian offensive in Ukraine following the Korsun–Shevchenkovsky offensive. In the battle, the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, commanded, respectively, by Nikolai Vatutin and Ivan Konev, encircled German forces of Army Group South in a pocket near the Dnieper River. During weeks of fighting, the two Red Army Fronts tried to eradicate the pocket. The encircled German units attempted a breakout in coordination with a relief attempt by other German forces, resulting in heavy casualties, estimates of which vary.
During the winter months the liberation of Kiev was followed by almost continuous campaigning to clear the southern front of German troops. In January Konev organized the seizure of the last element of the Dnepr line, which Hitler wanted to hold at all costs. The German salient was subjected to a sophisticated Soviet assault, which demonstrated how, even in harsh winter conditions, the newly learned art of mobile warfare could be deployed to deadly effect. By a brief deception, Konev succeeded in blinding the German defenders to his intentions. A limited attack on the south part of the salient masked the movement north, in complete secrecy, of the larger part of his forces. On January 24 his forces struck suddenly and ferociously. The German front was pushed back three miles, and the 5th Guards Tank Army moved through the Soviet infantry to exploit the breach and open the way to the German rear. Two days later another tank army on the north-west part of the salient cut through to join the 5th Guards and encircle the German forces in what became known as the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket. Leaving a thin outer cover to preserve the encirclement, Konev's troops, in bitter weather, cut into the pocket, reducing it step by step. Four Panzer divisions were mobilized to rescue the trapped Germans; they succeeded against an inexperienced tank army in breaking into the outer ring, but the concentration of air power (orchestrated at Stalin's insistence by the commander-in-chief of the Soviet air force himself) and the supply of fresh reserves blocked the relief column.
In mid-February, in fierce blizzards, the surviving troops in the pocket were flushed out by an incendiary attack that burned down the township sheltering them. The German commander, General Stemmermann, ordered his men to breakout, marching in two columns across the bare, snowy landscape. Unaware of what lay in wait, they set out to try to reach the relief force. As they moved forward into open terrain without a sign of the enemy, they relaxed. Some shouted out, others fired their automatic weapons. Suddenly, as from nowhere, Konev released his forces in a terrifying finale. The German columns were caught in the open with no heavy weapons. Soviet artillery blasted them and tanks crushed them beneath their tracks while a Cossack cavalry unit hunted down the German soldiers, slaughtering them with their sabres as their ancestors had done in generations of service to the Russian crown. ‘It was a kind of carnage,’ recalled one eyewitness, ‘that nothing could stop till it was over.’ Survivors tried to scramble clear, but of the 30,000 who had set off across the snow, 20,000 were dead, including Stemmermann, who had refused an earlier Soviet offer for him to surrender, and 8,000 were taken prisoner. Stalin was reported to be delighted with the massacre; Konev was promoted to marshal, but the hero of the initial encirclement, Nikolai Vatutin, blamed by Stalin for the time it took to reduce the pocket, received no acknowledgement.
The largest pocket developed in the Kovel-Korsun area of the lower Dnieper, in which SS Viking and the remnants of seven other divisions were trapped. By using the last of his Panzers, Manstein managed to drive a corridor through to the encircled men, but it was possible to keep this open for only a few hours.
Leon Degrelle, a Belgian with the SS Wallonia Brigade, has described how
"In this frantic race vehicles were overturned, throwing wounded in confusion to the ground. A wave of Soviet tanks overtook the first vehicles and caught more than half of the convoy; the wave advanced through the carts, breaking them under our eyes, one by one like boxes of matches, crushing the wounded and the dying horses...We had a moment’s respite when the tanks got jammed in the procession, and were trying to get clear of the tangle of hundreds of vehicles broken beneath their tracks."
For six miles the column struggled southeast under continuous fire, dragging its wounded tail, to which the Russian tanks were clinging. Then the Germans were halted by a river
"eight metres broad and two metres deep. The artillery teams which had escaped destruction plunged first into the waves and ice floes. The banks of the river were steep, the horses turned back and were drowned. Men then threw themselves in to cross the river by swimming. But hardly had they got to the other side than they were transformed into blocks of ice, and their clothes frozen to their bodies. Some fell down dead. Most of the soldiers preferred to get rid of their clothes. They tried to throw their equipment over the river. But often their uniforms fell into the current. Soon hundreds of soldiers, completely naked and red as lobsters, were thronging the other bank. Many soldiers did not know how to swim. Maddened by the approach of the Russian armour which was coming down the slope and firing at them, they threw themselves pell-mell into the icy water. Some escaped death by clinging to trees which had been hastily felled . . . But hundreds were drowned. Under the fire of tanks thousands upon thousands of soldiers, half clothed, streaming with icy water or naked as the day they were born, ran through the snow towards the distant cottages of Lysianka."
taken from the books of: Richard Overy, Alan Clark, John Erickson.
During the winter months the liberation of Kiev was followed by almost continuous campaigning to clear the southern front of German troops. In January Konev organized the seizure of the last element of the Dnepr line, which Hitler wanted to hold at all costs. The German salient was subjected to a sophisticated Soviet assault, which demonstrated how, even in harsh winter conditions, the newly learned art of mobile warfare could be deployed to deadly effect. By a brief deception, Konev succeeded in blinding the German defenders to his intentions. A limited attack on the south part of the salient masked the movement north, in complete secrecy, of the larger part of his forces. On January 24 his forces struck suddenly and ferociously. The German front was pushed back three miles, and the 5th Guards Tank Army moved through the Soviet infantry to exploit the breach and open the way to the German rear. Two days later another tank army on the north-west part of the salient cut through to join the 5th Guards and encircle the German forces in what became known as the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket. Leaving a thin outer cover to preserve the encirclement, Konev's troops, in bitter weather, cut into the pocket, reducing it step by step. Four Panzer divisions were mobilized to rescue the trapped Germans; they succeeded against an inexperienced tank army in breaking into the outer ring, but the concentration of air power (orchestrated at Stalin's insistence by the commander-in-chief of the Soviet air force himself) and the supply of fresh reserves blocked the relief column.
In mid-February, in fierce blizzards, the surviving troops in the pocket were flushed out by an incendiary attack that burned down the township sheltering them. The German commander, General Stemmermann, ordered his men to breakout, marching in two columns across the bare, snowy landscape. Unaware of what lay in wait, they set out to try to reach the relief force. As they moved forward into open terrain without a sign of the enemy, they relaxed. Some shouted out, others fired their automatic weapons. Suddenly, as from nowhere, Konev released his forces in a terrifying finale. The German columns were caught in the open with no heavy weapons. Soviet artillery blasted them and tanks crushed them beneath their tracks while a Cossack cavalry unit hunted down the German soldiers, slaughtering them with their sabres as their ancestors had done in generations of service to the Russian crown. ‘It was a kind of carnage,’ recalled one eyewitness, ‘that nothing could stop till it was over.’ Survivors tried to scramble clear, but of the 30,000 who had set off across the snow, 20,000 were dead, including Stemmermann, who had refused an earlier Soviet offer for him to surrender, and 8,000 were taken prisoner. Stalin was reported to be delighted with the massacre; Konev was promoted to marshal, but the hero of the initial encirclement, Nikolai Vatutin, blamed by Stalin for the time it took to reduce the pocket, received no acknowledgement.
The largest pocket developed in the Kovel-Korsun area of the lower Dnieper, in which SS Viking and the remnants of seven other divisions were trapped. By using the last of his Panzers, Manstein managed to drive a corridor through to the encircled men, but it was possible to keep this open for only a few hours.
Leon Degrelle, a Belgian with the SS Wallonia Brigade, has described how
"In this frantic race vehicles were overturned, throwing wounded in confusion to the ground. A wave of Soviet tanks overtook the first vehicles and caught more than half of the convoy; the wave advanced through the carts, breaking them under our eyes, one by one like boxes of matches, crushing the wounded and the dying horses...We had a moment’s respite when the tanks got jammed in the procession, and were trying to get clear of the tangle of hundreds of vehicles broken beneath their tracks."
For six miles the column struggled southeast under continuous fire, dragging its wounded tail, to which the Russian tanks were clinging. Then the Germans were halted by a river
"eight metres broad and two metres deep. The artillery teams which had escaped destruction plunged first into the waves and ice floes. The banks of the river were steep, the horses turned back and were drowned. Men then threw themselves in to cross the river by swimming. But hardly had they got to the other side than they were transformed into blocks of ice, and their clothes frozen to their bodies. Some fell down dead. Most of the soldiers preferred to get rid of their clothes. They tried to throw their equipment over the river. But often their uniforms fell into the current. Soon hundreds of soldiers, completely naked and red as lobsters, were thronging the other bank. Many soldiers did not know how to swim. Maddened by the approach of the Russian armour which was coming down the slope and firing at them, they threw themselves pell-mell into the icy water. Some escaped death by clinging to trees which had been hastily felled . . . But hundreds were drowned. Under the fire of tanks thousands upon thousands of soldiers, half clothed, streaming with icy water or naked as the day they were born, ran through the snow towards the distant cottages of Lysianka."
taken from the books of: Richard Overy, Alan Clark, John Erickson.