Waffen-SS: The Mius Front, 1943

Background

In the aftermath of the Battle of Kursk, the Totenkopf and Das Reich Divisions were sent south to strengthen the Mius Front, which was being assaulted by large Red Army forces. The two Waffen-SS divisions managed to achieve their objective, but in doing so suffered heavy losses in both men and vehicles, losses that could not easily be replaced.

The Mius line in danger

Barely two weeks after the end of Operation Citadel, II SS Panzer Corps was thrown into a new battle. In three days of fighting along the River Mius Front, in the southern Ukraine, Adolf Hitler's élite Waffen-SS panzer divisions would suffer more casualties than during the two-week swirling tank battles south of Kursk. Thrown into a bloody frontal assault, the Totenkopf and Das Reich Divisions suffered thousands of casualties from dug-in Soviet anti-tank guns and machine-gun nests. The Waffen-SS divisions eventually drove the Soviets from their bridgehead across the Mius, but the Führer's "Fire Brigade" lost irreplaceable men and equipment at a crucial time when the fate of the Eastern Front hung in the balance.

It took the Waffen-SS only a few days to disengage from the Prokhorovka region after Adolf Hitler cancelled Operation Citadel on 17 July 1943. Plans were now prepared for counteroffensives to destroy the Soviet bridgeheads across the Mius and the Donets at Izyum. The Leibstandarte and Das Reich Divisions, with the 17th Panzer Division and 333rd Infantry Division in support, were to crush the Izyum incursion with an assault beginning on 24 July. This was to be a quick containment operation, lasting only a few days, to allow II SS Panzer Corps to be free to deal with the Mius Front.

A change of plans

No sooner had the Waffen-SS troops been deployed in their attack positions than the order arrived from the Führer's headquarters cancelling the operation. He had other work for them. The Leibstandarte was loaded onto trains, minus its tanks which were to be handed over to the Das Reich and Totenkopf Divisions, and sent west to help shore up Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy after the Allied invasion of Sicily in early July 1943. The Izyum counterattack would be left to the élite Waffen-SS Wiking Division and the 17th Panzer Division. In two weeks of bitter fighting the two formations contained the Soviet bridgehead, but did not have the strength to wipe it out.

The remaining units of II SS Panzer Corps were now loaded onto trains again and sent off to the Mius Front, where a more serious crisis was developing that threatened to break open the southern front of Field Marshal von Manstein's Army Group South. For the Waffen-SS men this was a confusing time - they received little information apart from the time their trains were leaving for "destinations unknown". Once they arrived they were expected to be ready for action in a few hours.

prev | next