'Ostheer: January-July 1943 Defensive recovery and offensive disaster' described how the German Army threw away the precious strategic reserve husbanded by Heinz Guderian during spring 1943 in their ill-conceived July 1943 ‘Citadel’ offensive at Kursk. The Soviets’ halting of ‘Citadel’, however, was but the first of a series of setbacks that the Ostheer (the German Army in the East) experienced during the second half of 1943. For even as the Soviet High Command (STAVKA) prepared to halt ‘Citadel’, it also began planning a more ambitious strategic counter-offensive that would drive the Germans back to the Dnepr River and beyond into the Western Ukraine. These plans envisaged a series of staggered offensives, co-ordinated in time and space, that would implement the Soviets’ strategic policy of Successive Operations and their operational doctrine of Deep Operations. This article examines some of the measures the Ostheer implemented during the second half of 1943 in its attempts to resist these Soviet offensives.
On 12 July 1943, once the Red Army had virtually halted ‘Citadel’, STAVKA initiated its second-phase operations, with an attack to stave in the German-held northern shoulder of the Kursk salient. On 12 July, the Soviets launched Operation ‘Kutuzov’, an attack against the Second Panzer Army that caught the Germans – their attention still focused on ‘Citadel’ – by surprise; consequently, the rapid Soviet advance west soon threatened to cut the German lines of supply. Despite facing a precarious tactical situation, the beleaguered German forces in this sector retained their battlefield cohesion. Only a few units – such as elements of the 18th Panzer Division broke in the face of powerful Soviet attacks. These failures were a result, at least in part, of the severe casualties these units had experienced in recent weeks. The 18th Panzer Division, for example, which commenced ‘Citadel’ with a strength of 6,500 personnel, incurred 6,100 casualties during July and August, a loss that decimated the ‘primary groups’ that had been the main instrument of German combat cohesion during 1939–41. It had long been known that the shared rigours of harsh training and combat bound the soldiers in a section together in powerful bonds of comradeship, and that these primary-group allegiances were the main factor that motivated soldiers to fight.
To shore up their troops’ combat cohesion, German commanders reacted swiftly and ruthlessly to these local collapses in morale. Major-General von Schlieben, commanding the 18th Panzer Division, for example, bombarded his soldiers with propaganda that stressed both their racial superiority over the Soviets and Hitler’s strategic genius in conducting the war. In addition, he ordered his officers to shoot any soldiers who broke and ran in the face of the enemy. The rapid growth of this self-imposed German terror is evidenced by the fact that during 1943–44, the German Army executed 4,118 of its own soldiers for various military offences, whereas the corresponding figure during 1939–43 was only 519 soldiers. Through the combination of intense indoctrination and severe discipline German commanders sought to keep their hard-pressed troops steadfast in defence. During 1943, despite a deteriorating strategic situation, these measures proved largely effective, because most German soldiers both felt bound by the personal allegiance they had sworn on oath to the Führer and feared what a victorious Red Army would do to a defeated German population.
Such severe discipline helped the Germans during mid-August to conduct an orderly withdrawal west in the face of fierce enemy attacks back to the previously prepared defences of the Hagen Line. For the Ostheer had recognised that the previous two years of intense combat in the east had reduced its operational mobility and combat power. Mounting equipment shortages, the paucity of munitions, and limitations in fuel availability, together with the lack of officers, a growing manpower shortage, the loss of many experienced soldiers, and the weaknesses obvious in new replacements, all ‘demodernised’ the Ostheer and decreased the mobility of its units.
These growing problems were exacerbated by the declining standards of new recruits as the Germans increasingly scraped the bottom of the manpower barrel. To compensate for the declining physical and mental standards of these older, younger, or medically less fit personnel, the High Command until 1944 resisted the temptation to increase the number of recruits reaching the front by shortening the 16-week infantry basic training period. In addition, divisional commanders modified their battle inoculation practices to compensate for the poorer intrinsic capabilities of these still well-trained replacements. Initially, new replacements served in divisional field replacement battalions, where a cadre of ‘battle-wise’ veterans taught these green soldiers how to survive and fight effectively on the battlefield. These battalions usually held the quieter sectors of the front so that the green soldiers could gradually acclimatise to the realities of war in the east.
In addition, after recognising both this declining operational mobility and troop quality, the Ostheer modified its defensive doctrine to compensate. By the second half of 1943, a skilfully executed elastic defence, like that undertaken by von Manstein that spring, had become harder to implement. Consequently, the Ostheer abandoned elastic defence in depth and instead relied on a static defensive doctrine. Such defences, like that of the Hagen Line, had the advantage that even inexperienced and relatively poorly motivated troops could still deliver an effective defensive combat performance from the protection of concrete bunkers. Through such a policy the Germans sought to slow down the Soviet advance, while simultaneously creating the opportunity for occasional mobile counter-strikes. The drawback of static defence was that, by fixing forces to linear positions, it further degraded the mobility and flexibility of the Ostheer and thus presented the Soviets with the opportunity to outflank German defence lines and then, through skilful manoeuvre, to encircle and annihilate them.
Renewed Soviet Attacks
On 3 August 1943 STAVKA followed up the successful first two phases of its summer campaign plan with Operation ‘Rumyantsev’, an offensive by the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts designed to stave-in the southern shoulder of the Kursk salient. Once completed, STAVKA intended to extend the scope of the counter-offensive by initiating further attacks to the north and south, which would take the Red Army to the Dnepr River and beyond on a frontage of 800km (500 miles). On 3 August, these numerically superior Soviet forces struck Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army and Kempf’s Army Detachment. During the next two weeks the Soviets successfully advanced south to capture Kharkov on 21 August.
At this moment a decisive Soviet breakthrough toward the Dnepr River was a real possibility. To help prevent this calamity Hitler ordered construction work to begin on the Eastern Rampart, a static defence line that ran along the Dnepr down to Zaporozyhe and thence to Melitopol on the Sea of Azov coast. That a desperately overstretched German Army managed to complete some sections of the Eastern Rampart owed much to their ruthless mobilisation of local resources. German engineering units forcibly conscripted thousands of local civilians – men, women and children – to dig trenches and help construct defences.
During August, as ‘Rumyantsev’ unfolded, STAVKA extended its counter-offensive toward the River Dnepr into one that spanned three-quarters of the Eastern Front from Velikye Luki in the north to Taganrog on the Sea of Azov coast. By mid-September the Soviets had advanced to a line that ran from the River Desna in the north, through Poltava and Kharkov, to the east of Zaporozyhe on the Dnepr and down to the coast around Melitopol. The Germans recognised that static defence in the face of such powerful Soviet offensives could only slow – but not defeat – the enemy, and so they endeavoured to facilitate Guderian’s continuing efforts to rebuild the weakened panzer arm. Consequently, on 24 September the High Command initiated organisational reforms designed to augment the combat power of its panzer divisions. It authorised a new, improved, organisation for these formations, the Model 1944 Panzer Division. The main change was that in this new formation a battalion of 75 Panther Model A tanks replaced the battalion of now obsolete Panzer III tanks. The Model A Panther design, introduced in August 1943, was a much improved version of the unimpressive Panther Model D that ameliorated – but did not entirely solve – the mechanical problems that dogged its predecessor. The ability of the panzer divisions in the east during late 1943 to field 75 potent Panther tanks augmented their combat power. In addition, the increase in the firepower assets available to the Model 1944 Panzer Division, plus the organisational restructuring of the panzergrenadier regiments, more than compensated for the rationalisation of divisional personnel.
Meanwhile, the continuing Soviet advance compelled von Manstein during 16–27 September to conduct a difficult withdrawal operation across the Dnepr River before the rapidly advancing Soviet spearheads captured the bridges and trapped the less mobile Axis forces located between these crossings against the river. The decreasingly mobile German infantry divisions had to improvise to ensure they got their essential heavy weapons across the river. One private, for example, recalled that his resourceful comrades converted flat-bottomed boats into impromptu sledges to carry their mortars and machine guns across the frozen terrain as they retreated toward the river. The ingenuity and physical determination of these soldiers ensured that their vital defensive firepower assets made it across the river with the troops before the Soviets blocked the crossing points.
To ensure this withdrawal could be accomplished, von Manstein’s desperate troops ruthlessly implemented Hitler’s scorched earth policy to deny the advancing Soviets valuable supplies. Soldiers of the crack Grossdeutschland Division, for example, alone burned down 700 dwellings and destroyed 1,260 agricultural machines. The German Air Force (Luftwaffe) also sought to enhance the assistance it could offer von Manstein’s hard-pressed divisions by amalgamating its separate Stuka dive-bombing and Henschel-equipped fighter-bomber squadrons into a single ground-attack branch. This rationalisation enabled the Germans to concentrate greater numbers of scarce aircraft, including the new Focke Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bomber models, at the decisive points where massed Soviet armoured formations had broken through the German defences. During late September, the air force flung these squadrons into the fray in a desperate attempt to slow the Soviet armoured drive to the Dnepr.
To the West Bank
Despite these concerted German defensive efforts, the achievement of two Soviet bridgeheads across the River Dnepr during 21–22 September threw von Manstein’s skilfully executed withdrawal plans into confusion. Even more dangerous for the Germans, by the end of the month the Soviets had managed to secure additional bridgeheads across the Dnepr from which they could continue to strike west. Next, on 9 October, the Soviets commenced the next phase of their strategic counter-offensive, the drive across the Dnepr into the Western Ukraine. That the battered Ostheer, some 16 per cent under strength in manpower, chronically short of officers and deficient in all types of equipment and vehicles, nevertheless managed to slow this drive across the Dnepr owed much to the first fruits of Germany’s belated adoption of a total war footing. For during 1943, Germany finally began to gear up for a total war economy, although this process would not be complete until late 1944. The first signs of this total mobilisation emerged in February 1943 when, under Guderian’s encouragement, German AFV production rates increased markedly, thus helping rebuild the shattered panzer arm. Though the High Command foolishly threw away the fruits of this careful husbandry at Kursk, further increases in German production during the second half of 1943 at least prevented the already dire equipment shortages at the front becoming much worse in the face of the vast attrition inflicted by repeated Soviet offensives. In comparison with the figures for 1942, German production of AFVs during 1943, for example, increased from 3,118 to 11,546 vehicles.
These burgeoning levels of deliveries to the front went some way to replace the vast attrition experienced in the east, and helped a battered German Army remain cohesive in the face of a numerically superior enemy. The increasing move toward total war during 1943 culminated in Hitler’s Basic Order 22 of 27 November, which initiated a drastic rationalisation of the German Army’s non-combat personnel. Through ruthless combing of support units and rear-echelon establishments, over the following months the Germans freed up one million additional troops for frontline combat. As part of this drastic rationalisation, during late 1943 the army began reorganising its infantry divisions on the new Model 1944 establishment. Recognising the severe difficulties already experienced in sustaining existing establishments, the 1944 Model Infantry Division authorised a total strength of 12,772 personnel, 27 per cent fewer personnel than the 1939 Model Division. The infantry component was reduced by 31 per cent to give a total infantry strength of just 5,500 soldiers. To compensate for these losses, the 1944 Model Division increased authorised firepower by 13 per cent, including 200 additional machine guns and 32 new 12cm heavy mortars. The end result was a smaller, but more powerful, infantry division with a higher ‘teeth to tail’ ratio. These manpower-rationalisation and organisational efforts paid off in early 1944, when average German divisional strengths in the east actually increased from 21 per cent below authorised levels to just five per cent below.
These reforms proved to be desperately needed for, on 9 October, the Soviets resumed their offensive west. That day the Soviets attacked the Azov port of Melitopol, and during the next three weeks raced west to reach the Dnepr estuary, thus cutting off the German forces in the Crimea. By 4 November, therefore, the German Sixth Army had been forced on to the western bank of the Dnepr except for a small but vital bridgehead east of the river around Nikopol. In this key bridgehead hard-pressed German infantry welcomed the arrival of small numbers of a new portable anti-tank weapon. The 8.8cm RPzB 43 Panzerschreck was simply a modified version of the American Bazooka, examples of which had been captured in Tunisia. German firms had improved the Bazooka design to produce an effective infantry tank destruction weapon. Fired by electrical igniters, the tube-like device could deliver up to five hollow-charged anti-tank rockets per minute to an admittedly modest maximum range of 150 metres. Although the weapon could penetrate the armour of virtually any enemy tank then in existence, it suffered from two drawbacks: its short range meant that to use it effectively, German troops had to show great courage by engaging at close range; and the backblast from the rocket emitted a dangerous sheet of flame which forced the operator to wear special protective clothing and a gas mask. Yet despite these drawbacks, and given the dearth of available 7.5cm Pak 40 guns, the Panzerschreck gave the hard-pressed German infantry platoon the organic portable tank destruction device for which they had long clamoured. In the fighting that raged around the Dnepr that early November, German infantry tank-killing squads soon discovered the awesome destructive power of the Panzerschreck, as well as the dangers involved in employing it effectively to stem the Soviet armoured onslaught.
While these events unfolded, on 15 October the Soviets attacked von Manstein’s Army Group South between Kremenchug and Dnepropetrovsk. During the next ten days, Soviet mechanised spearheads pushed south-west to reach Krivoi Rog, the key junction that supplied the German forces deployed around Nikopol to the east. Recognising the dire threat represented by this development, the High Command dispatched the first deliveries of a new infantry recoilless anti-tank weapon, the Panzerfaust, to bolster the German defence in this sector. The Panzerfaust, developed during 1942, utilised technology from both the German recoilless gun and rocket launcher development programmes. The weapon consisted of a simple disposable tube launcher with a propellant charge that drove the hollow-charged grenade round fitted to the end of the tube out to the target. The hollow-charged round could penetrate the armour of any Allied tank then in existence. The chief limitation of the first versions of this weapon was that their effective range remained just 30 metres (32 yards), which meant that only suicidally brave soldiers could use it effectively. But during these bitter defensive battles, sufficient numbers of determined German infantrymen existed to ensure that the successful Soviet advance was only achieved at the cost of many dozens of destroyed T-34 tanks.
Though the deployment of the first Panzerfausts augmented this passive German defence, von Manstein realised that such measures were not enough to alter the unfavourable situation facing him. Consequently, he attempted to replicate the flexible, elastic defence his forces had employed so effectively in spring 1943. The field marshal managed swiftly to redeploy the crack XXXX Panzer Corps for an audacious counter-thrust to stop the dangerous Soviet drive to Krivoi Rog. During 27–29 October, the corps smashed into the over-extended Soviet spearheads, supported by extensive sorties flown by the Luftwaffe’s new combined ground-attack squadrons. Even though the corps flung back and mauled two Soviet mechanised corps, von Manstein simply lacked sufficient armour to stop the other Soviet mechanised thrusts then simultaneously engulfing his command.
As these battles raged across the Eastern Front during the second half of 1943, the Ostheer also attempted to regenerate the combat power of its artillery arm, shattered by the many bitter battles fought since June 1941. The German defence against the previous two Soviet winter counter-offensives had underscored the vital role that massed artillery fire played in augmenting defensive resilience. In addition, during 1942–45 both the Soviets and the Western Allies increasingly relied on centrally directed massed artillery fire as a primary instrument of both offensive and defensive tactics. But during this same period vast losses of German artillery pieces, limitation in available munitions, huge shortages in towing vehicles that limited mobility, and the lack of high quality personnel, creamed off for other branches, reduced the effectiveness of the German artillery arm. Furthermore, the fierce defensive battles fought between July and December 1943 permitted the Germans no respite to achieve more than a modest consolidation of their shattered artillery forces. Nevertheless, the German Army soon recognised that expansion of its mortar and elite rocket launcher forces could provide some compensation for its weakness in artillery. Easier and quicker to manufacture than field guns, these fire support weapons were more manoeuvrable and hence less vulnerable to the Soviets’ increasingly potent aerial and artillery threats. Consequently, during 1943 the army raised additional 15cm and 21cm rocket launcher units to bolster defensive steadfastness. In the battles fought on both sides of the Dnepr during late 1943, the few German troops lucky enough to be supported by rocket launcher units witnessed the awesome destructive and morale impact these weapons had on attacking Soviet forces.
Not surprisingly, the outnumbered German forces deployed along the Dnepr clamoured for rocket launchers to reinforce their flimsy defence against renewed Soviet offensive efforts. For during 12–23 October, the Soviets attempted to break out of the Veliki Bukrin bridgehead, but for once they failed in the face of an untypically resilient German defence stiffened by a combination of roving police squads, brave infantry tank destruction teams, effective rocket launchers, and intense German aerial support. Nevertheless, the constant Soviet attacks eventually broke through the German defences, and on 7 November, the Red Army captured Kiev. Meanwhile, further north Soviet forces had successfully crossed the Dnepr south of Zhlobin. In the desperate rearguard actions staged in this sector, a few fortunate German infantry units found their resistance augmented by the first examples of a devastating new weapon. The 8.8cm Pak 43 was the most effective heavy anti-tank gun of the Second World War, although its scarcity undermined its battlefield impact. This gun could penetrate 167mm (6.5in) of 30-degree sloped armour at 1,000 metres (1,094 yards), enough to destroy any enemy tank in existence. The few German soldiers who found their defensive localities supported by this awesome weapon – like those near Zhlobin – discovered for the first time in the war that their army now possessed a weapon that could blunt the power of massed enemy armoured attacks even at long range.
Meanwhile, further south, von Manstein again attempted to enact an elastic defence in the face of the renewed Soviet offensives by redeploying a panzer corps to Berdichev for a daring counter-stroke against the enemy armour then racing west from Kiev. During 14–22 November, the corps successfully advanced deep into enemy lines to retake Zhitomir and destroy the Third Guards Tank Army. Through skilful redeployment and rapid concentration of his meagre armoured forces, von Manstein managed to strike the over-extended Soviet spearheads at their weakest point; while through sound leadership, tactical flexibility, and effective training, his over-stretched panzer forces managed to inflict a severe local defeat on the Soviets. Yet so unfavourable had the strategic situation become that now even significant tactical successes such as these could only contribute modestly to staving off the calamity then engulfing the entire German southern wing of the Eastern Front.
For during 13–22 November, as von Manstein struck toward Zhitomir, he faced a new threat as enemy forces broke out from their bridgehead across the Dnepr at Cherkassy. Recognising the urgent need to respond quickly to this new military crisis, the German High Command again increased its propaganda and political indoctrination efforts. For during December 1943 the High Command instituted a new appointment within front-line units – the National Socialist Leadership Officer (NSFO). Hitler tasked these leaders with maintaining the morale and defensive steadfastness of the troops despite the increasingly unfavourable conditions. Carefully selected from battle-experienced and decorated veterans known for their fanatical commitment to the Nazi cause, the NSFOs soon became the primary instrument of political indoctrination in the German Army during the last 18 months of the war.
From December 1943, the NSFOs employed methods similar to those used by divisional Education Officers during the preceding year. The NSFOs presented political discussions and seminars that emphasised Hitler’s strategic genius and the historic duty of the Wehrmacht to defend European civilisation from the Asiatic Soviet hordes; they delivered lectures that stressed the German people’s racial superiority; they distributed vitriolic anti-Semitic and other racist pamphlets; and they showed nationalistic films that extolled the virtues of the German people. In addition, a favoured, and apparently effective, technique was to introduce short battle slogans that the troops could recite at the front. Such easily memorable mantras revolved around familiar themes, such as that greater German determination would alter the course of events on the battlefield. As accounts by veterans confirm, during December 1943 in German trenches, green infantrymen nervously recited these mantras to boost their resolve as they waited expectantly, Panzerfaust in hand, as columns of T-34 tanks headed toward them.
Even if these efforts to boost troop morale proved unexpectedly effective, the situation facing the Ostheer during late 1943 remained critical. Still chronically short of heavy weapons and vehicles, plus now suffering a 21 per cent deficiency in manpower, the Ostheer faced, in addition to Western Allied attacks in Italy, a Red Army more powerful than ever before. To compound this unhappy situation, on 23 December 1943 STAVKA initiated another offensive designed to carry the Soviets deep into the Western Ukraine. That during late 1943 the German Army in the East had managed to remain sufficiently cohesive to slow the Soviet drive to the Dnepr and beyond, was due to the following seven developments. First, increased political indoctrination and propaganda, based on the soldiers’ fear of Soviet victory, bolstered German defensive resilience. Second, the increasingly harsh discipline inflicted on German troops reinforced this steadfastness. Third, during late 1943, powerful new portable tank destruction weapons and heavy anti-tank guns tempered to some degree the massive threat posed by Soviet armour. Fourth, greater availability of rocket launchers helped break up enemy attacks. Fifth, the re-equipping of Germany’s panzer divisions with the Panther tank helped their well-executed mobile ripostes to achieve impressive local successes against over-extended Soviet forces. Fifth, the concentration of scarce ground-attack aircraft at key points helped the Germans stem some of the most threatening Soviet thrusts. Sixth, drastic personnel rational-isations helped ameliorate the increasingly severe manpower shortages experienced by the Ostheer. Last, appropriate doctrinal modification, backed by sensible organisational reforms, reinforced the developments already discussed to further buttress defensive capabilities. These measures ensured that despite intense enemy pressure the Ostheer remained cohesive into early 1944. These measures, however, would soon meet their sternest test, for during 1944 the Germans would encounter the most formidable Soviet offensives yet unleashed during the war.
by Dr Stephen A Hart
Further Reading
Abbott, Peter, Men-at-Arms 131: Germany's Eastern Front Allies 1941-45 (Osprey, 1982)
Erickson, John, The Road to Berlin (Westview Press, 1983)
Glantz, David M., From the Don to the Dnepr (Frank Cass, 1991)
Jukes, Geoffrey, Essential Histories 24: The Second World War (5) The Eastern Front 1941-1945 (Osprey, 2002)
Mellenthin, F. W. von, Panzer Battles 1939–45 (Cassell, 1955)
Thomas, Nigel, Men-at-Arms 326: The German Army 1939-45 (3) Eastern Front 1941-43 (Osprey, 1999)
Thomas, Nigel, Men-at-Arms 330: The German Army 1939-45 (4) Eastern Front 1943-45 (Osprey, 1999)
Thomas, Nigel & Caballero Jurado, Carlos, Men-at-Arms 363: Germany's Eastern Front Allies (2) Baltic Forces (Osprey, 2002)
Westwood, David, Warrior 76: German Infantryman (2) Eastern Front 1941-43 (Osprey, 2003)
Ziemke, Earl F., Stalingrad to Berlin (GPO, 1968)