* The Red Army had not inflicted a defeat on the Wehrmacht at Kursk without suffering injury itself -- but the Soviets had hardly exhausted themselves, while the Germans had been strained to the utmost. The Soviets pushed the invaders back, and by the end of 1943, the Germans could only look back on the war in the East for that year as a string of disastrous defeats. With the coming of winter, the Allies met at Tehran to discuss how to finish off the Axis.
* The end of CITADEL didn't stop the fighting in the region. The German offensive into the Kursk salient had jumped off from Orel in the north and Belgorod in the south; in effect, the area around these cities amounted to twin salients into Soviet lines, and even before the shooting in the Kursk battle died down, the Red Army was on the roll to pinch the two salients off.
The attack on the Orel salient, codenamed Operation KUTUZOV after the great Russian general of the Napoleonic Wars, began on 12 July 1943. Twin prongs were launched against Orel, with the Central Front under Rokossovsky advancing out of the Kursk salient towards the south of the city, and the Bryansk Front under Lieutenant General Markian Popov moving towards the north of the city. A third prong, the West Front under Lieutenant General Vasily Sokolosky, also jumped across German lines north of the Soviet-held town of Kirov, well up the line from Orel.
The Soviets forces involved in KUTUZOV outnumbered their German opponents by a rough factor of two-to-one in both men and equipment, and the Red Army made good progress at first. However, on 13 July Model was put in charge of the 2nd Panzer army to conduct the defense of the area, and he did so skillfully. The Germans had built up extensive field defenses around Orel, with the Soviets finding it very nasty going.
Manstein's stubborn resistance in the Kursk salient delayed the offensive against Belgorod into August, since the Red Army had to take the time to refit and resupply. On 2 August, German signals intelligence reported to Manstein that Soviet radio traffic had risen very sharply and that an attack was certain within the next few days. The offensive jumped off at dawn the next day, 3 August, with Vatutin's Voronezh Front driving south to the west of Belgorod and Konev's Steppe Front driving to the east of the city. The Soviet advantage over the Germans in the region was even greater than it was in the north -- about three-to-one in men and equipment.
The German defense around Belgorod was disrupted beyond any salvation, and the Germans fell back on Kharkov, to the south of Belgorod, to set up a new defensive line. On 5 August 1943, the Red Army retook Belgorod, the same day that Orel was finally retaken by Soviet forces. However, Model got his 2nd Panzer Army out of Orel in good order, with his troops falling back to a new defensive line across the base of the Orel salient.
The recapture of Belgorod and Orel put Stalin in a good mood, and he ordered fireworks and artillery salutes in Moscow to celebrate. Some of the citizens thought an air raid was in progress and took shelter. Stalin issued an order commemorating the victory, saying that the Red Army had proven that it conduct and win a summer offensive, and concluding: "Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the struggle for the freedom of our country. Death to the German invaders!" There was something in this snappy bit of rhetoric that resonated with Stalin, and he would use the same words to commemorate every victory from that time on.
* Belgorod was only a way station for the Red Army's thrust into the Donets Basin. Kharkov was a bigger prize. Not only was it one of the biggest Soviet cities to fall into German hands, but its recapture by the Germans earlier in the year was a particular humiliation for Stalin that had to be avenged. Hitler just as stubbornly insisted that it not be given up: "Kharkov must be held at all costs."
Vatutin's Voronezh Front advanced towards Akhtrya, to the west of Kharkov, in hopes of cutting off and isolating the Germans. The Germans reacted quickly, resulting in a battle that began on 7 August. After brutal fighting, the German 19th Panzer Division and 48th Panzer Corps managed to stabilize the line around Akhtrya and halt Vatutin's advance. On 10 August, Konev, eager to outshine Vatutin, launched his Steppe Front against Kharkov and managed to penetrate into the eastern suburbs of the city, only to be driven back out by a furious German counterattack.
Vatutin, going nowhere at Akhtrya, sent General Rotmistrov's Fifth Guards Tank Army to fall on Kharkov from the northwest. Soviet tanks drove into the German defenses on the morning of 19 August. They were met by the German 11th Corps under General Erhard Raus, a tough and combative Austrian. His defense was led by the 6th Panzer Division. The first attack was a bloody failure, with Rotmistrov losing at least 184 tanks and driven off. He came back again the next day, 20 August, losing 150 tanks and being driven off again. That night, he tried a third time, losing about 80 more tanks. Three T-34s did manage to make it into the city, where they raised hell and confusion until they were destroyed.
The Soviets had been taking a beating, but the Germans were by no means undamaged themselves. The 6th Panzer division had been almost completely wrecked, with only 15 tanks left. Once again, Manstein was a realist, and he knew the Red Army could and would win this battle of attrition, probably with the next push. Manstein decided to withdraw. Hitler protested that the loss of the city would undermine Germany's credibility with the country's Axis allies. Manstein was unmoved: there was no question that Kharkov was lost, the only question was whether the Reich wanted to lose the 11th Corps along with it. Hitler sullenly agreed with the decision to withdraw, and Manstein ordered Raus to pull out on 22 August. The Red Army moved back into Kharkov, this time for good. The tide was now flowing strongly against the Nazis.
BACK_TO_TOP* The Red Army was also hammering on Manstein from the southeast. The Soviet Southern Front, under Lieutenant General F.I. Tolbukhin, had jumped over the Donets River and was now trying to push on to Crimea. Manstein knew that the defense of the entire Donetz Basin had become unhinged, and he made a pointed request back to Berlin: either he would be given a half-dozen panzer divisions, or he would fall back across the Dnieper, where he could set up a solid defensive line that was shielded by a wide river: "I request freedom of movement."
Hitler replied that they would discuss the matter at his advance field headquarters, codenamed "Werewolf", at Vinnitsa in the western Ukraine. The meeting took place on 27 August. Hitler seemed bewildered as Manstein's officers outlined the comparative strength of Red Army forces operating against Army Group South: the Germans were outnumbered at least four to one in every respect. Manstein then hit the Fuehrer again: either provide reinforcements, or authorize a withdrawal behind the Dnieper. Manstein proposed that reinforcements could be transferred from Kluge's Army Group Center. Hitler waffled, but Manstein rightly insisted that a decision had to be made immediately. Hitler caved in, ordered the transfer, and went back home.
* Whatever relief Manstein got out of this concession was short-lived. The next day, 28 August, the Red Army smashed into Army Group Center. Kluge was under far too much pressure to spare any forces. Manstein's fortunes were no better, since the same day the Soviet Southern Front broke through his lines, trapping the German 29th Corps up against the shores of the Sea of Azov.
Everything that Manstein had feared was now coming true very quickly. Manstein called Hitler and arranged a conference at the Fuehrer's "Wolf's Lair" headquarters in East Prussia. The meeting took place on 3 September, with Kluge in attendance as well. The two field marshals presented a united front, proposing that the top military command be consolidated under a military officer who would act as a supreme commander. Hitler had no intention of giving up his powers, and flatly rejected the proposal. The most he was willing to do was authorize a few modest retreats. As if to underline the inadequacy of these half-measures, later that day news arrived that the Western Allies had landed in Italy. The Red Army had also renewed its pressure, the Southwest Front smashing through German lines and Rokossovsky's Central Front driving a wedge between German Army Group Center and Army Group South.
Manstein repeated his request for freedom of action. The Fuehrer flew to Manstein's forward headquarters at Zaporozhye in Ukraine on 8 September. Manstein bluntly stated that a withdrawal behind the Dnieper was absolutely necessary. Hitler replied: NO. He did promise Manstein reinforcements from Army Group Center, but it is difficult to believe that Manstein thought for an instant that was even possible. It wasn't. The next day, 9 September, an exasperated Manstein called up chief of staff Zeitzler and told him: "Kindly inform the Fuehrer that he may expect the beginning of a disastrous Soviet breakthrough to the Dnieper at any moment."
* The moment came five days later, on 14 September. In a two-pronged offensive, Rokossovsky's Central Front smashed through German lines to advance on Kiev from the northeast, while Vatutin's Voronezh Front moved on the city from the southeast. Manstein simply informed Berlin that he intended to begin a withdrawal to the Dnieper come the morning. He met with the Fuehrer at the Wolf's Lair the next day, 15 September. Hitler had little choice but to agree to the retreat.
That was welcome to Manstein, but far from a miracle cure. Hitler's refusal to consider retreat up to that time meant that no real advance work had been done for a withdrawal under fire, always a difficult operation. Although German propaganda had been boasting about the "East Wall" of defenses along the west bank of the Dnieper, in reality little work had been done to build fortifications there. Hitler had judged that doing so would have guaranteed a retreat.
Manstein still managed to pull it off, and the Germans took the time to perform Operation SCORCHED EARTH, taking everything that could be moved and destroying everything that couldn't. When time and resources permitted it, mines and devious booby traps were sown in numbers. The region was simply "sterilized". Hundreds of thousands of livestock were taken, along with about 280,000 Soviet citizens to be put to work as slave laborers.
The season had been unusually rainy, bogging down both the Germans and the Soviets in mud. German forces reached the Dnieper on 21 September, crossing at Kanev about 105 kilometers (65 miles) south of Kiev, with the Red Army right behind them. Partisan fighters radioed that there were no Germans on the west bank of the Dnieper near the "Bukrin Bend" in the river, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of Kanev. Both the Red Army and the Germans got the message and a race began.
The Red Army got there first, sending a company across during the night to join partisan fighters. More forces flowed in during the day. The Germans countered with troops and reinforcements of their own and the fighting escalated, with the Soviets gradually expanding the bridgehead.
On 24 September, three brigades of Red Army paratroopers, about 7,000 men, were airdropped on the bridgehead. The Red Army had been a pioneer of paratroop operations as far back as the early 1930s, but that effort had been derailed by the purges; paratroop drops had been performed, not very successfully, during the winter campaign of early 1942, but they had not been on this scale. The drop was hideously bungled. The paratroopers were poorly trained -- it seems some had never actually performed a parachute jump before -- and the transports flew in without coordination, dropping the soldiers almost at random, many falling over German troop concentrations to be shot as they descended. Those that landed alive were quickly hunted down. Only about 2,300 of them managed to escape and join partisan fighters.
Stalin was furious at the fiasco, and never considered large paratroop drops again. He continued to pump reinforcements into the Bukrin bridgehead with blind determination, though days of fighting produced no results. The Soviets stayed bottled up in the bridgehead, with little to show for their efforts but growing casualty lists.
BACK_TO_TOP* The Red Army managed to get small forces across the Dnieper in several other places, but the Germans reacted quickly each time and these other bridgeheads didn't go anywhere either. However, on the night of 26 September, elements of the Soviet Thirty-Eighth Army established another bridgehead at Lyutezh, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Kiev and upstream from the confluence of the Dnieper and the Desna River.
The Germans pounced on this penetration, and bottled it up as well. Voronezh Front commander Vatutin decided, without much hope of success, to see if he could expand the bridgehead. He ordered Lieutenant General A.G. Kravchenko, head of the armored corps of the Fifth Guards Army, to get his tanks there as fast as possible.
Kravchenko's armor had to get over the Desna. There was no bridge in the area, but local fishermen pointed out where the river could be forded. The ford was over two meters (seven feet) deep and Kravchenko's T-34s weren't rigged for snorkeling, but the tankers managed to seal them up and get 90 of them across. There was no way to ford the Dnieper in such a way, but Kravchenko's men found two damaged barges that could carry three tanks each, and managed to get most of their armor across the river during the night of 5 October, with the rest following during the day. They quickly expanded the bridgehead, but the Germans once again reacted fast and the Soviets quickly bogged down.
However, Vatutin was becoming more optimistic about the Lyutezh bridgehead, believing that if he just had the resources to push harder he would be able to break out. Unfortunately, Moscow remained focused on the Bukrin bridgehead downstream. Vatutin's political commissar, the noisy and energetic Lieutenant General Nikita Khrushchev, lobbied the Kremlin to reconsider.
The general staff finally realized that the Bukrin bridgehead was a lost cause and decided to shift the effort to the Lyutezh bridgehead. In the last week of October, the Soviet Third Guards Army quietly moved from the Bukrin bridgehead north, moving at night to keep the Germans in the dark. Strict radio silence was observed, with the radio operators left in their original positions to continue their chatter as if an entire army were still there. Dummy tanks were set up in the old positions as well. The rains continued, further helping to conceal the transfer of troops and equipment.
Vatutin loaded up the Lyutezh bridgehead with troops and armor, backed up by 2,000 guns and mortars along with 500 Katyusha rocket launchers. The Germans were hit by a thunderous bombardment on at dawn on 3 November, followed 40 minutes later by the advance of six infantry divisions of the Thirty-Eighth Army and a tank corps of the Fifth Guards Army. The German defense crumbled and the Third Guards Army followed through the breach. Soviet forces entered Kiev on the evening of 5 November, and by 7 November, the 26th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, the city had been cleaned of German forces.
A half-million Germans and Soviets, soldiers and civilians, had died in the Dnieper campaign. Of all the Red Army soldiers who were awarded the prestigious Hero of the Soviet Union decoration, almost half won it on the banks of the Dnieper. Kiev had been reduced to a rubble heap. Stalin celebrated his triumph in Moscow with fireworks and artillery salutes.
Stalin spoke to the Soviet people, as he always did on 7 November. He stood in front of a crowd at the Kremlin, bathed in orchestrated applause that was kept going until the audience could clap no more. He was now triumphant and boasted in complete truth of the Red Army's great victories. He gave little credit to the people, the "little cogs in the machine", who had actually done it. As always, their deaths were only a matter of sums on a sheet to him, a resource to be expended to achieve his goals.
* With the massive movement of Soviet forces, the various fronts in the campaign were redesignated:
The Red Army kept up the momentum for the moment. There were increasing cases of German troops inflicting wounds on themselves in hopes of escaping to the rear. Such wounds could be detected by powder burns; the unlucky soldiers were usually quickly court-martialed and shot.
Once again, however, the Germans still proved they shouldn't be underestimated. When the First Guards Tank Army took Zhitomir, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) to the southwest of Kiev, Papa Hoth saw that the Soviets were out on a limb and counterattacked on 14 November, throwing the First Guards out of the city after five days of tough fighting. It was smartly done, though it did Hoth little good; Hitler needed miracles to win the war now, and even Hoth couldn't deliver miracles. The Fuehrer soon sacked him for failing to recapture Kiev. In any case, the battle for Zhitomir was the last of the major fighting in the East for 1943.
Stalin was not happy with the reversal at Zhitomir, and sent Rokossovsky to Vatutin's First Ukrainian Front headquarters to check up on Vatutin and relieve him of command if it seemed necessary. Rokossovsky got a chilly welcome from Vatutin and his staff, but Vatutin soon realized that Rokossovsky had taken his instructions from the Kremlin with a grain of salt. Rokossovsky was on the front lines, and knew that some reverses could be expected in combat, however much Moscow might be displeased with them. Overall, things had gone very well for the Red Army in the campaign; there was no reason to do more than examine the mistakes made, and determine corrections for the future.
Things had not gone so well for the Germans. Hitler had stubbornly held on to the Donetz, only authorizing a retreat to the Dnieper at the last moment. Thanks to the haste of the withdrawal and the lack of preparation of defenses, now the Dnieper line had been compromised, almost certainly beyond repair. The Fuehrer's forces in the East had been badly battered, and the resources were not available to rebuild them to adequate strength. It was obvious to everyone in the German high command that the Western Allies would land in somewhere in Western Europe sometime in the coming year. If the invasion succeeded, the British and Americans would soon be at Germany's borders. Building up forces to meet the threat in the West took priority.
BACK_TO_TOP* 1943 had been a good year for the Allies, with significant accomplishments in all theaters. Now it was time for the leadership to confer and decide what to do next. Roosevelt had never met Stalin personally and had been pushing to arrange a meeting with him, with the president believing that his own personal diplomacy, in which he had, for good reasons, great faith, could carry the day with the Soviet dictator. Over a year earlier, Roosevelt had written Churchill:
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I know you will not mind my being brutally frank when I tell you I think I can personally handle Stalin better than your Foreign Office or my State Department. Stalin hates the guts of all your top people. He thinks he likes me better, and I hope he will continue to do so.
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Roosevelt had tried to set up a meeting with Stalin from that time, but Koba had persistently rejected the idea, only coming around to agree in September 1943. To pave the way for a top-level meeting, at Stalin's suggestion, in October 1943 US Secretary of State Cordell Hull and British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden flew to Moscow to confer with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. At the "Third Moscow Conference", as it would become known, Molotov pressed Hull and Eden on the unceasing Soviet demand for a second front and was assured, much to his satisfaction, that there would be an invasion of France come the spring.
Part of Hull's agenda was to push a "Four-Power Declaration", what became known as the "Moscow Declaration", in which the US, Britain, the USSR, and China publicly committed to the creation of an organization that would help keep the peace in the postwar world. Molotov was skeptical, in particular criticizing the American notion that China was a "great power" -- the Soviets not only regarded China as a negligible military power, they also did not want to provoke trouble with Japan and risk a fight on two fronts -- but agreed in the end.
One of the major results of the conference was the establishment of the "European Advisory Commission (EAC)", which would conduct detail planning for political arrangements to follow the conflict, and make recommendations to the leadership. A significant step had also been taken towards the formation of the United Nations. Hull regarded it as one of the high points of his career.
* The preliminaries done, the "Big Three" -- Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin -- arrived in Tehran, Iran, for their conference on 18 November 1943. Tehran had been chosen at Stalin's insistence. He did not like to travel far, probably less because of the inconvenience of travel itself than because he feared being out of control even for a short period of time.
While Roosevelt was determined to push through a second front in France in 1944, Churchill had been resisting the idea, believing that the Mediterranean and Norway would be easier and more productive targets. The result was a showdown between the president and the prime minister at Tehran, with Roosevelt conducting several one-on-one meetings with Stalin so Churchill could be kept out of the loop. Churchill had always done everything he could to keep Roosevelt and Stalin from meeting by themselves, though Churchill had repeatedly met with Stalin by himself, and Roosevelt was no doubt partly showing Churchill that the President of the United States set his own agenda.
Churchill made a case at length for operations in the Mediterranean, but the American and Soviet delegations formed a common front against him. Even if all of Italy were conquered by the Allies, they would be stopped cold by the Alps; similarly, the rugged Balkans hardly provided a highway to the Reich. The only straightforward path from the West that could be used to drive a spearhead into Germany was France. The invasion of France, codenamed OVERLORD, would proceed on 1 May 1944. When the decision was made, Stalin gave Churchill a glance that everyone present read as: There! So what do you think about that?!
The Soviets agreed to conduct an offensive in parallel, though no doubt they would exploit the arrival of spring to take action in any case. Koba pressed Roosevelt to name a commander for OVERLORD, saying that it would be hard to believe the plan was for real unless someone was assigned to take charge. The president said it would be done, but that the matter needed more discussion among senior military and government leaders -- a response that Stalin clearly found baffling: Consensus? What point was there in that? As far as Stalin was concerned, people just did what he told them to do.
The discussion then moved on to other items:
Stalin saw a war with Japan as settling scores with Japan for Russia's defeat in the 1904:1905 Russo-Japanese War. The Soviet Union would regain the southern half of Sakhalin Island, off the southern coast of Siberia, and the Kurile Islands, stretching from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the northern major Japanese island of Hokkaidou. The Soviets would also obtain a sphere of influence in Manchuria, including access to the twin ports of Darien (Dalian) and Port Arthur (Lashun Port) on the Yellow Sea. No specifics on a Soviet war with Japan were established, that matter to be dealt with later.
Stalin was happy with the Tehran conference, having got a firm commitment on the second front. Roosevelt was happy as well, having got all he wanted. The issue of Poland clearly remained troublesome, but the president did not feel that American interests were strongly affected by the affairs of Eastern Europe -- and to the extent that he felt it was important, his motivation was mostly to reassure Polish-American voters. There was little Roosevelt could do about it in any case.
After the conference, the president would privately describe his one-on-one discussions with Stalin in glowing terms, saying that the "ice was broken" and they "talked like men and brothers." In hindsight, that has a fatuous sound to it; some who knew the president suggested in response that was just his politician's instinct to "embroider the picture" at work, painting the scene in the most optimistic colors. Still, Roosevelt had good reason to be satisfied with the results.
Churchill was less happy about the outcome. Britain had gone to war over Polish independence, and was the primary backer of the Polish government-in-exile in London. The prime minister could only feel uneasy about making deals over Poland behind the backs of the Free Polish leadership. Churchill also remained concerned, some might say obsessed, over operations in the eastern Mediterranean -- though he did not challenge the buildup towards OVERLORD.
* There was time for ceremony at the conference. Churchill honored Stalin by formally presenting him with a ceremonial sword, the "Sword of Stalingrad". Stalin seemed honestly moved; tears flowing from his eyes, he kissed the sword. He then passed the sword to his old crony Marshal Voroshilov, who ruined the moment by dropping it.
There were less affectionate scenes. When the discussion got around about what to do about Germany once the country was defeated, Stalin suggested shooting 50,000 to 100,000 German officers. Churchill went red-faced with fury and protested loudly. Roosevelt saw that Stalin was toying with Churchill and went along with the gag, suggesting that 49,000 would be sufficient. Churchill stomped out of the room, though Stalin and Molotov followed and managed to calm him down, assuring them that it was just a joke.
Of course it was, since Stalin would have never discussed any of his crimes in such an environment. What Churchill understood was that Stalin regarded the murder of tens of thousands of people as something of a joke in the first place. In hindsight, however, Roosevelt's comment about only shooting 49,000 officers remains one of the more ambiguous remarks of an artist of ambiguity. Roosevelt was showing signs of increasing disgust as revelations continued to appear about Nazi atrocities in occupied territories. There was no way America was going to participate in the mass extermination of the German officer corps, nor fail to protest if the Soviets shot the lot of them -- but the protests might not be very heartfelt. How much Roosevelt was actually joking is forever impossible to say.
* In any case, Stalin had got his second front, or would in the near future. The Western Allies had every reason to keep their word to him, however dimly they might have been aware of it at the time. If they did not advance on German from the west, the Red Army juggernaut would continue until, sooner or later, it reached the Atlantic. In the long run, the second front was as much or more an operation to frustrate Stalin as it was to defeat Hitler.
Churchill still went home dissatisfied, his suspicions of the Soviets remaining at full steam. In early 1944, PRAVDA ran an article that the British were engaged in secret negotiations with the Germans -- and there was no way such an article would have been published without the knowledge and consent of Stalin. Churchill wrote Koba an irritable letter denying the report: "We never thought of making a separate peace even in the year when we were all alone when we could have easily made one without serious loss to the British Empire and largely at your expense. Why should we think of it now, when our triple fortunes are marching to victory?" Churchill grumbled privately: "Trying to maintain good relations with a Communist is like wooing a crocodile. You do not know whether to tickle it under the chin or beat it over the head. When it opens its mouth, you do not know if it is trying to smile, or preparing to eat you up."
To the extent that Hitler knew about the squabbles between Stalin and his allies from news reports and German intelligence, he considered it all a bit baffling. The Fuehrer of course had plenty of unpleasant experience himself with Stalin as an ally, but found the provocations thrown out by the Kremlin irrational, with Goebbels writing in his diary: "The Fuehrer cannot understand it. If he was in that position, he would soft-soap them more."
Partly that conclusion was due to the fact that Hitler believed that the Soviets were much weaker and in need of help than they actually were, that the fighting during 1943 had bled them to their last legs. That was not entirely untrue, since Soviet front-line formations had been whittled down by combat to the point where some were mere skeletons, and finding manpower to rebuild them was troublesome. The problem was that, even strained, the Red Army was still more than a match for the Wehrmacht, both in terms of men and equipment, there being no real shortage of powerful weapons -- and, as Hitler was just then finding out, thinking the balance had tipped back in Germany's favor was delusional.
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