186 - Kharkov Falls Once Again - WW2 - March 19, 1943

Where is the big salient now? Where? Kursk? yeah, I’ve heard of it. So

what, Hitler wants it gone? After the spring muds have dried. Yeah, makes sense,

I guess. I’ll probably forget all about it, though. Hey, remind me if anything comes of it. Okay?

All right, see you. March 19, 1943

This week comes something that we haven’t seen happen all that often,

and not since the war went global. This week comes an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life.

I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.

Last week there was a change in American command in North Africa,

with George Patton replacing Lloyd Fredendall. The Axis have a change too, as Erwin Rommel

leaves North Africa; Hans-Jurgen von Arnim replaces him. There was also an Axis attack

there last week, the Battle of Medenine, which the Axis lost, but in the Soviet Union,

the Axis forces were on the move and were just outside Kharkov as the week ended.

They have decided that rather than bloody street fighting like Stalingrad,

they will encircle the city.

Pavel Rybalko’s Soviet 3rd Tank Army is in the city playing defense. The only reserve he can

call on is B.S. Bakharin’s 18th Tank Corps. They battle units of the SS Panzer Corps this week for

Rogan the 13th and 14th, and after being pushed back take new defense positions on the road from

there to Chuguyev at Kamenaya Yaruga, but the SS units reach Chuguyev by the night of the 16th.

Now, Bakharin’s Corps have maybe slowed the encirclement of the city by a couple of days,

but Rybalko knows that once that’s complete then he’s never going to escape, so on the 15th he

gives the order for the breakout of the troops so far surrounded in the city and the suburbs.

He dose not have radio contact with all these units though, so the order tells anyone who

gets it to ‘tell their neighbor’. This actually works pretty well. One division and two brigades

get the order, and they pass it on to the three divisions and two brigades without radio. I read

this in Alexei Isaev’s “The Battle for Kharkov”- Evtikhiy Belov, in charge of the city’s defense,

who is at a divisional HQ without radio, gets word in good time and decides they’ll out toward

the southeast, between Zmiyev and Chuguyev, in two groups, covered by the 62nd Guards Rifles,

who are the first to get Rybalko’s orders. This withdrawal is successful, by the 17th the forces

are on the eastern banks of the Sverskiy-Donets making a new defense, and the Germans have fully

occupied Kharkov. They declare it captured already the 14th, but it does, in f act,

take a couple more days to clear the Soviets from the factory area in the south of the city.

German Army Group South Commander Erich von Manstein’s forces aren’t

sitting around resting on their laurels, though. They immediately drive on Belgorod,

beginning their drive the 18th at 0645. Belgorod is basically undefended and the Germans enter

before noon. They are counterattacked by arriving Soviet forces,

but do manage to secure it. And that is that for the German offensive a month after it kicked off.

“By March 19th Manstein’s counterattack had died down. The SS divisions amounted to less

than 35 panzers apiece, they had incurred heavy losses in terms of both personnel and equipment.

Furthermore the spring season of mud had arrived, which had traditionally become one which saw a