The SS Panzer Corps was led by SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Paul Hausser, who had previously commanded the 2 nd SS Panzergrenadier Division Das Reich. To prevent disaster in Southern Russia, Hitler provided Manstein with a powerful corps-level Panzer force: the SS Panzer Corps of the Waffen-SS. Hiter and generals discussing "Plan Blue" during the first half of 1942.(BA) The Arrival of the SS Panzer Corps
Shortening the front would enable sufficient mobile forces to be freed to launch a counter-attack at the right moment. Hitler also agreed to not only let Army Group A withdraw from the Caucasus but also to give up large swathes of territory around the Don and Donets Rivers.
#PANZER CORPS DIFFICULTY LEVELS FULL#
Although he had little in the way of resources, Manstein realised that he had to do all he could to stabilise the collapsing Don River Front so that Army Group A could withdraw from the Caucasus and pass back through the Rostov bottleneck safely.Īfter much debate, Manstein finally persuaded Hitler to give him full control. In the picture above, Red Army soldiers leap off a to join a battle on foot.( NARA)įield Marshal Erich von Manstein, the commander of Army Group Don, found himself facing this mess. The Red Army conducted multiple offensives in different sectors along the southern Russian front after they encircled the German 6th Army in November 1942. The situation was made even worse by Hitler’s refusal to give up on the Caucasus. The Germans would then be in danger of seeing a complete collapse of the Eastern Front.
If the Red Army’s spearheads reached Rostov on the shore of the Caspian Sea, the German forces on the Eastern Front would be caught in a massive strategic encirclement. They entered the Caucasus during the summer and fall of 1942, and their long, narrow supply lines passed through a bottleneck at Rostov. There simply weren’t enough German Panzer divisions to hold back the massive Red Army all at once, so they could only be employed as “fire-fighting” brigades that would rush to push back incoming attacks at critical points.Īrmy Group A was in danger of such an attack. The entire Axis battlefront was in danger of disintegrating. Apart from the siege of Stalingrad, Army Group Don to the south of Army Group B was having trouble resisting the Red Army’s assaults because too many sections of the front were held by unreliable Axis allies. The situation in southern Russia was very unfavorable to the Germans. Troops and resources were transferred to the northern part of the Eastern Front to contain the growing crisis. The Red Army’s subsequent frontal offensive against the Italian 8 th Army on the Chir River to the north soon opened a gap in the Axis lines that forced the Germans to abandon their attempt to relieve the 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad.
In response, the 4 th Panzer Army from Army Group Don launched an attempt to break the siege in December. The starting point was the encirclement of the German 6 th Army on 19 November, 1942.
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The German Force at the Battle of Kharkov in the early spring of 1943 The Eastern Front during the winter of 1942/1943Īs the year became 1943, a series of actions centered around Stalingrad in southern Russia led to some of the heaviest fighting on the Eastern Front during World War II. How did they do it? Find out more in this story. Despite this difficulty, German armoured units managed to defeat Soviet force. In February 1943, freezing cold winter air blanketed the Soviet Union.