Kessel battle near Kalatsch

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The map shows the German attack (blue) in August 1942, which included the 62nd Army on the Stalingrad Front.

The Kesselschlacht near Kalatsch from July 25th to August 11th 1942 was part of the fighting in the Donbogen during the German summer offensive 1942 in the south of the Eastern Front . It led to a minor success of the German 6th Army on their advance to Stalingrad .

background

Landscape on the Don south of Kalatsch

The Red Army's winter offensive of 1941/42 was halted by the Wehrmacht with enormous losses and the Eastern Front stabilized. As part of a German counter-offensive during the Battle of Kharkov , 240,000 Red Army soldiers were captured in May. In the run-up to the planned German summer offensive in the south of the Eastern Front, u. a. also the Crimean peninsula including the besieged Sevastopol fortress completely taken. With the aim of clearing the way to Stalingrad and the Caucasus, the Don Arch should now be conquered.

The summer offensive of Army Group South under the code name “ Fall Blau ”, which began on June 28, aimed to secure the oil reserves in the foothills of the Caucasus and to conquer Stalingrad on the Volga . In order to be able to pursue these two goals at the same time, the Army Group was divided into Army Groups A and B at the beginning of July . The 6th Army, subordinated to Army Group B, under General der Panzertruppe Friedrich Paulus , received the order to clear the advance route in the Donetsk area, while other parts of the Army Group took the important Voronezh junction .

Since Hitler feared supply problems in view of the size of the planned operational area, he ordered that instead of the extensive encircling operations of 1941 with large cauldrons, this time operations should be carried out using small cauldrons. As a result of the rapid and orderly retreat of the Red Army, the areas of the two small cauldrons were almost empty. In addition, the German units were ultimately inadequate to conquer the strongly defended Voronezh. Therefore, despite initial successes, the advance remained stuck on the Tim (river through Voronezh) and the traffic junction remained under Soviet control. The later troop relocations of the Soviet armed forces, which finally smashed the northern flank of the German front, which was covered by Romanian and Italian units, were made possible by this.

The boiler battle

SPW (Lt. Detmar Philippi) of the 64th Rifle Battalion advancing towards the Don

At the end of July 1942, the 6th Army approached the apex of the Don loop near Kalatsch am Don , about 85 km west of Stalingrad. The Soviet high command decided to defend the Don crossings in this area and concentrated its troops, mainly the newly established Soviet 1st Panzer Army and a large part of the 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front , in the hilly terrain west of Kalach. Because of the Soviet resistance that began on July 23, as well as the lack of fuel, the 6th Army was frozen for a full two weeks.

Soviet counterattacks

The 16th Panzer Division was attacked by almost 200 tanks near Kisilew on July 23, the 113th Infantry Division gathered around Perelasowskij had to defend against Soviet troops, which were also supported by tanks. Further north, the XIV Panzer Corps with the 3rd and 60th motorized divisions were able to penetrate into the area 25 km north of Kalatsch, then got into the toughest defensive battle and had to retreat to the Lipologovsky area.

In the Don-Bogen the XI. Army Corps with the 100th Jäger Division advanced to the south of Kletskaya. On July 25, the Red Army was able to cut off the line of retreat of the XIV Panzer Corps, and the German vanguard had to withdraw. Only the massed support and the emergency supply through the deployment of the VIII. Fliegerkorps (General Martin Fiebig ) could save the troubled earth troops from the encirclement. The following day was south of the Chir, the over Morosovskaya oncoming LI. Army Corps with the 71st Infantry Division reached the Don at Nizhne-Tschirskaja and crossed the Tschir east of the Liska estuary with the 297th Infantry Division . Already on July 28th General von Seydlitz-Kurzbach had to give up the Werchne Tschirskaja he had already won before enemy tank attacks, to the north of which the 44th Infantry Division was stuck on the northern bank of the Tschir. The German aerial reconnaissance found over 300 Soviet tanks in the western Don bridgehead at Kalatsch, which began to attack the XIV Panzer Corps on the southern flank near Skvorin. The intervention of the VIII Army Corps , which was advancing eastwards via Businowka, fought the supply line of the Panzer Corps free that day.

South of the Tschir, the XXIV. Panzer Corps with the 24th Panzer Division had arrived at Verkhne Tschirskaja and relieved the LI. Army corps that shifted its own focus to the north. The 384th Infantry Division, which had reached Kalmykow in the west, was pushed back several kilometers to the north by superior armored forces. On the northern section, the Soviet Don bridgehead at Serafimowitsch was taken by an infantry regiment of the 305th Infantry Division at the first attempt and transferred to the XVII. Army Corps (initially with the Italian 3rd Division "Celere" ) handed over.

The 8th Army Corps with the 376th , 305th, 113th and 384th Infantry Divisions gradually built up a new front to the east against the Soviet 4th Panzer Army (General Kryuchonkin ) attacking from the Don bend between Kletskaya and Golubinskaya . The arrival of the 389th Infantry Division at Manoilin strengthened the 100th Jäger Division in the defensive battles in the Businowka area. The encirclement aimed at by General Paulus over the Soviet 62nd Army attacking between the Tschir and the Don was already emerging.

End of the fighting

On August 4, the attacking peaks of the north-east facing German 4th Panzer Army (14th Panzer Division and 29th Motorized Division) had reached the Aksai sector in the south and threatened the deep open flank of the Soviet defense ( 51st Army ) Stalingrad. After the Germans had succeeded in preparing the Lisichansk - Millerowo railway , the transport columns were no longer dependent on the far longer distance from Kharkov . By August 6th, the ammunition equipment and supplies of supplies of the 6th Army were replenished, the high command of the Wehrmacht ordered Paulus to encircle them.

On August 7, Paulus ordered the attack: From the south the XXIV Panzer Corps (with 151 tanks) had to break through from the lower reaches of the Tschir to the north and the XIV Panzer Corps (with 191 tanks) from the area northwest of Kalatsch had to break through to the south trapped enemy forces cut off the retreat across the Don . The XI. Army Corps had to prevent the enemy from breaking out to the northwest, and VIII Army Corps had to secure the northeast flank. In the southwest the 44th Infantry Division had to narrow the basin towards the Dobrinka section.

The 24th Panzer Division , which succeeded the 76th Infantry Division , reached the heights 12 km north of Rytschow. To the west of it the 297th Infantry Division accompanied the advance and penetrated Buratsky. From the north, the 16th Panzer Division managed to break through to the east of the Liska sector on Ostrow, with much stronger defense on the part of the Soviets. At around 3 p.m. the northern pincer arm reached heights 6 km west of Kalatsch. The 60th Motorized Division advanced south-west through Skowrin, while the 3rd Motorized Division did not advance against buried tanks. The VIII. Air Corps provided the two Panzer Corps with invaluable support from the air. Strong Soviet counter-attacks from the Don promontory at Kletskaya by the Soviet 21st Army in the rear of the German 6th Army were contained in time by the 22nd Panzer Division, temporarily assigned to Paulus .

On the morning of August 8, the armored heads of the 16th and 24th Panzer Divisions met on the heights west of Kalatsch as planned. The ring around the Soviet 1st Panzer Army and 62nd Army was closed. According to German sources, 57,000 Red Army soldiers had surrendered by August 11th.

consequences

The Kalatsch Kessel Battle provided the basis for the subsequent German attack on Stalingrad . The Red Army gained valuable 18 days through their resistance, which were gained to expand the still inadequate defense of Stalingrad. The 6th Army formed a strong bridgehead over the Don at Kalatsch, the last obstacle before Stalingrad was overcome with a two-week delay. Stalingrad was not reached until August 23, due to the last successful battle of the Wehrmacht.

Paul's successful approach increased his fame as a tactician , and for the last time there were hopes of an imminent Soviet collapse on the German side, although the number of Red Army soldiers captured was relatively small, as the Red Army did not stop the advance of the 6th Army, but should only disturb for a short time. This tactic thus enabled the expansion of the Soviet defense in Stalingrad.

Major associations involved

Wehrmacht

6th Army

VIII Army Corps General Walter Heitz

XIV Army Corps (motorized) General of the Infantry Gustav von Wietersheim

XI. Army Corps General Karl Strecker

LI. Army Corps General of the Artillery Walther von Seydlitz-Kurzbach

XXIV Army Corps (motorized) General Willibald von Langermann and Erlencamp

Red Army

62nd Army Major General Vladimir Yakovlevich Kolpaktschi

  • 33rd Guards Rifle Division
  • 39th Guards Rifle Division
  • 147th Rifle Division
  • 181st Rifle Division
  • 184th Rifle Division
  • 192 rifle division
  • 196th Rifle Division
  • 121st Armored Brigade

Reserve:

  • 214th Rifle Division
  • 229th Rifle Division
  • 131st Rifle Division
  • 399th Rifle Division

4th Panzer Army (Major General Vasili Dmitrijewitsch Kryuchonkin )

  • 18th Rifle Division
  • 205th Rifle Division

22nd Panzer Corps, Major General Alexander Alexandrovich Shamschin

  • 173rd Armored Brigade
  • 176th Armored Brigade
  • 182nd Tank Brigade
  • 22nd Motorized Rifle Brigade

23rd Panzer Corps, Major General Abram Matveevich Khazin

  • 6th tank brigade
  • 114th Armored Brigade
  • 130th Armored Brigade
  • 9th Motorized Rifle Brigade

1st Panzer Army General Kirill Moskalenko

13th Panzer Corps, Major General Trofim Ivanovich Tanaschishin

  • 6th Guards Tank Brigade
  • 13th tank brigade
  • 254th Armored Brigade
  • 38th motorized rifle brigade

28th Panzer Corps, Major General Georgi Semenowitsch Rodin

  • 39th Armored Brigade
  • 55th Armored Brigade
  • 56th Armored Brigade
  • 32nd Motorized Rifle Brigade

See also

literature

  • David M. Glantz: To the gates of Stalingrad: Soviet-German combat operations, April – August 1942. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence 2009, ISBN 978-0-7006-1630-5 .
  • H. Selle: Panzerschlacht von Kalatsch , General Swiss Military Journal, Volume 127 (1961), pp. 420-425.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schram: OKW -Kriegstagebuch Volume 1, p 1379th