Waffen-SS: Retreat to the Dnieper, 1943

Background

While the bloody battles raged along the River Mius Front, the Soviet High Command used the breathing space caused by the departure of the Waffen-SS panzer divisions in the northeastern Ukraine to prepare for the decisive offensive to break the German hold on the Eastern Front once and for all. Again, Hitler would turn to his Waffen-SS formations to save the day.

Operation Rumyanstev

The Soviet First Tank Army, Sixth Guards Army and Fifth Guards Tank Army, which had escaped the German coup de gr‰ce at Prokhorovka by Adolf Hitler's decision to call off Operation Citadel prematurely, were quickly rebuilt for offensive operations. Men and resources were allocated to the units decimated at Kursk to bring them up to strength for Operation Rumyanstev, as the Soviets codenamed their new offensive.

The offensive was to break along an axis from Belgorod to Kharkov, and then fan out westwards to drive the German Army Group South back to the River Dnieper. To ensure the success of the operation, Stalin massed 650,000 men and 2300 tanks north of Belgorod. They faced a shell-shocked Fourth Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf, which had been granted no respite since the end of Operation Citadel. They mustered only around 200,000 men and fewer than 300 tanks between them. The army panzer divisions committed to Operation Citadel had suffered far heavier casualties than the Waffen-SS, and still had not received any replacement tanks or men. In most sectors, the Soviets were able to achieve a local supremacy in tank strength of 12 to 1.

Operation Rumyanstev is launched

When Operation Rumyanstev was unleashed on 3 August 1943 it achieved dramatic successes. The brunt of the Soviet assault fell to the west of Belgorod against the sectors of XXXXVIII Panzer Corps and LII Corps respectively. The 19th Panzer Division could only put 28 tanks into action against the main Soviet axis of attack. It took the Russians only a matter of hours to crack open the German defences, and once a breach developed there was no way to seal it. A torrent of T-34s was unleashed.

The German XI Corps fought a dogged rearguard action along the Donets above Belgorod, and then pulled back to Kharkov, repulsing repeated attempts to outflank its front. The 6th Panzer Division, 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion with Tiger I tanks, and numerous independent assault gun battalions saved the day on numerous occasions as XI Corps fell back southwards.

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