![]() ![]() That fact locates the area in which the corps was operating. First, the intention to use the SS Panzer Corps in a massive counter-attack. The intention of OKH to use the SS Panzer Corps in a concentrated counter attack has been thwarted by the speed of the Soviet advance…” Three facts in the above appreciation are of importance to the narrative which is described below. The German 320th Division is fighting a fierce defensive battle at Ssvativo. The military situation at that time was assessed by SS Corps as follows: “The 69th Red Army and 3rd Tank Army have gained the line of the Upper Oskol and Valuiki and are pressing forward in conjunction with 6th Red Army, towards Kupyansk…while Popov’s Army is closing in on Slaviansk. Upon its arrival “LAH” was ordered to take position to the south-east of Kharkov and to form a defensive front east of the River Donets, between Smiyev and Kotomlya. Panzer Grenadier Division “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” (“LAH”) was one of the elite formations which was ordered to move with best possible speed to join Army Group Don and, specifically, the SS Panzer Corps. #3ya grvad battle group build crackTo bolster up the wavering Eastern Front Hitler ordered the transfer of a number of crack divisions from France and Italy. Those corps and divisions still fighting as organised bodies also had the task of closing gaps in the battle line, particularly that one, now over 200km wide, which yawned between Army Group B and Army Group Don. Army Groups B and Don were ordered to hold fast in order to prevent the Soviet military advantage turning into a German rout. Under the heavy blows which the Red Army rained down upon the formations of von Manstein’s Army Group Don in those first days of February 1943, the German front began to fragment. No formation could be certain whether during a march it might not encounter a pocket of enemy infantry, desperate men cut off but determined to fight a way through to reach their own army. None knew whether out of the dark night a Panzer battalion might attack or a Cossack sotnia sweep from the cover of a snow storm, sabring to death any unit which broke. None could be sure of the identity of the units on the flanks. In such a fluid situation there could be no such thing as a firm front line and by the same token, if there could be no firm front line then there could be no rear area with its guarantee of safety. ![]() Nevertheless, the advance still moved westwards against opposition maintained chiefly by German formations standing like rocks around which the Red Army flooded. The Red Army’s drive which had begun in November 1942 was still running in February 1943, although the early elan which had carried the Soviet forces forward had begun to flag by February. The power of the Soviet counter-offensive had torn through the miscellany of foreign divisions which had been fielded to help Army Group South and those non-German units had broken creating a gap 100km wide in the battle line. The Wehrmacht’s summer offensive died in the ruins of Stalingrad and in November 1942, long before the last flickers of German resistance had been extinguished, the Red Army’s winter offensive had already swung into action, driving westwards with the aim of capturing Kharkov. It had not been as bitter as that of the previous year and the German Army had been better prepared to meet this second cold weather period than it had been in 1941, but the military situation had changed. The second winter in Russia, that of 1942-43, was coming to an end. Peiper’s return (red line).īattle Group Peiper in the mission to rescue 320th Infantry Division, surrounded and cut off south of Kharkov, February 1943 ![]()
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