Case Blue
| date | June 28 to November 1942 |
|---|---|
| place | Donets Basin , Caucasus , Kuban Region , Soviet Union |
| output | Strategic German defeat |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Wilhelm List (Army Group A) |
|
| Troop strength | |
|
Army Group A : 11th Army 17th Army 1st Armored Army 4th Romanian Army Army Group B : 2nd Army 6th Army 4th Armored Army 3rd Romanian Army 8th Italian Army 2nd Hungarian Army Total: approx. 1,500,000 1,500 armored vehicles 1,550 Planes |
South Front Southwest Front Don Front North Caucasian Front Transcaucasus Front Total: over 2,300,000 |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
unknown |
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
1941: Białystok-Minsk - Dubno-Lutsk-Rivne - Smolensk - Uman - Kiev - Odessa - Leningrad blockade - Vyazma-Bryansk - Kharkov - Rostov - Moscow - Tula
1942: Rzhev - Kharkiv - Company Blue - companies Braunschweig - company Edelweiss - Stalingrad - Operation Mars
1943: Voronezh-Kharkov - Operation Iskra - North Caucasus - Kharkov - Citadel Company - Oryol - Donets-Mius - Donbass - Belgorod-Kharkov - Smolensk - Dnepr
1944: Dnepr-Carpathians - Leningrad-Novgorod - Crimea - Vyborg-Petrozavodsk - Operation Bagration - Lviv-Sandomierz - Jassy-Kishinew - Belgrade - Petsamo-Kirkenes - Baltic States - Carpathians - Hungary
1945: Courland - Vistula-Oder - East Prussia - West Carpathians - Lower Silesia - East Pomerania - Lake Balaton - Upper Silesia - Vienna - Oder - Berlin - Prague
The National Socialist regime used the code name “Fall Blau” or “Company Blue” to designate the first part of the Wehrmacht's summer offensive in 1942 during the German-Soviet War .
prehistory
After the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 did not lead to the expected collapse of the Soviet Union and the German attack wedges had come to a standstill in front of Leningrad , Moscow and Sevastopol , the Wehrmacht was confronted with the first counter offensives by the Red Army in the winter of 1941/42 .
In response to this, Hitler appointed himself Commander-in-Chief of the Army in December 1941 and gave the order to hold the front line, which prevented major losses of territory, but also consumed important resources that were urgently needed for the next operations.
Nevertheless, in the summer of 1942 Hitler wanted to launch an offensive on the southern section of the front in order to secure Germany's war-important oil fields of Maikop , Grozny and Baku . At the same time, the Soviet Union was to be cut off from this vital resource and thus brought about a collapse. Similar ideas had already been put forward by the British and French General Staff, who wanted to bring about a "complete collapse" of the Soviet Union with the bombing of the Soviet oil fields planned in Operation Pike .
This was opposed by the fact that the parts of the German army that were deployed against the Soviet Union, from June 22, 1941 (beginning of the attack on the Soviet Union) to spring 1942, had already lost more than 30 percent of their initial strength of 3.2 million men (dead , Wounded, missing).
planning
In the draft of the General Staff Chief Franz Halder for directive No. 41, which he presented to Hitler on March 28, 1942, the password for the company was still “Siegfried”. After Hitler had revised the draft again and added essential parts, it was replaced on April 5, 1942 by the code name Fall Blau .
In directive No. 41 of April 5, 1942, Hitler laid down the goals of the company which the three army groups were to carry out in the summer. The Army Group South under General Field Marshal Fedor von Bock was assigned the main task of the actual summer offensive. First of all, the northern wing of the Army Group was to take over the city of Voronezh- on- Don in a pincer movement ( blue I ), and then march south along the Don in order to encircle strong enemy forces in cooperation with a second advance from the Kharkov area ( blue II ). In the third part of the enterprise ( Blue III ), the advance to the Volga to Stalingrad was to take place in cooperation with the southern wing of the Army Group, which was advancing to the east , in order to capture it or at least bring it within range of its own artillery. The aim was to cordon off the Volga for Russian supplies. The fourth phase, only hinted at in the directive, included the advance south across the Don to take possession of the Caucasian oil fields at Maikop and Grozny as well as Baku on the Caspian Sea. The long northern flank of the Army Group along the Don was to be defended primarily by the armies of the allies (Hungary, Italy and Romania) during this operation, to which individual German units were to be added for stabilization.
Directive No. 41 also contained further strategic goals, including the complete occupation of the Crimean peninsula and the capture of Leningrad in the north of the Eastern Front and the establishment of a land connection with the Finnish army.
On April 14th, Hitler ordered the establishment of a new Army Group Staff, later Army Group A , which would later take over the right wing of Army Group South for operations in the Caucasus. The 11th Army and the Romanian 3rd Army , which were still tied up in the Crimea for the time being, were to be brought across the Kerch Strait for the Blücher company .
The weak point of the plan was the elongated northern flank, for the defense of which two to three armies were always deployed, which were missing during the advance and yet could not effectively defend such a long front in the event of a mass attack. This task fell mainly to the armies of allied states, which, however, had little or no combat experience and were largely poorly armed. In addition, logistical problems were foreseen, since supplies for the planned advance essentially depended on a single efficient railway bridge over the Dnieper near Dnepropetrovsk , the Merefa-Kherson Bridge . Hitler consciously accepted these risks, as the conquest of the oil fields had absolute priority for him and he again - as at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa - underestimated the remaining strength of the Red Army after the numerous tank battles that were victorious for Germany with high Soviet losses.
In May, a Soviet offensive near Kharkov failed because the Red Army was surprised by the strength of the forces already concentrated there, and the subsequent German counter-attack improved the strategic starting point for the summer offensive. On June 19, 1942 - shortly before the start of the German summer offensive - the First General Staff Officer of the 23rd Panzer Division , Major Reichel, undertook a reconnaissance flight; the Fieseler Fi 156 had to make an emergency landing just behind the Soviet lines. Maps and plans for the first phase of operations fell into the hands of the Soviets. After this incident, the code names for the offensive were changed, and the Blau case became the Braunschweig company . The plans were presented to Stalin; he thought it was a ruse and gave orders to ignore it.
Company history
Army Group South had about 900,000 men, 1,263 tanks, 17,035 guns and mortars and 1,640 aircraft ready for the first attack. Behind it, several armies of the allied states Hungary, Italy and Romania followed later to secure the conquered areas. At the beginning of the German offensive, three Soviet fronts defended themselves (the Brjansker Front under Filipp Golikow , the Southwest Front under Semyon Tymoshenko and the South Front under Rodion Malinowski ) with around 655,000 men, 744 tanks, 14,196 artillery pieces and mortars and 1,012 aircraft. In the second meeting and behind the Don another five reserve armies (3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th) were deployed with an equal number of troops. To protect Voronezh, shortly after the start of the German attack, the newly established Soviet 5th Panzer Army under General Lisjukov was released from the Stawka reserve in the Moscow military district .
First phase
The German offensive began on June 28, 1942 by the von Weichs Army Group , to which the Hungarian 2nd Army was subordinate. The German 4th Panzer Army and the 2nd Army led their main thrust on a 100 km wide front between Orel and Kupyansk in the direction of Voronezh in order to reach the Don as the first operational target. The Soviet 40th Army under General MA Parsegow withdrew almost everywhere , as the Soviet High Command had expected the German summer offensive near Moscow and 50% of the Red Army were stationed there.
On June 30th the attack of the German 6th Army between Belgorod and Olchowatka followed , to the northeast in the direction of Korotscha the VIII. And XXIX. Army Corps , heading east on Wolokonowka-Oskol became the XXXX. Panzer Corps and the XVII. Army Corps , while the LI. Army Corps was advancing on Waluiki . After a 70-kilometer advance, the German troops crossed the Oskol sector from July 1st and reached the Don between Voronezh and Korotojak by July 5th. The armored spearheads of the 4th Panzer Army reached the Don near Voronezh and penetrated the city. Here, too, the Soviet 21st and 28th Armies of Generals AI Danilov and DI Ryabyschew were able to evade destruction by surrendering the land. On July 6, the Soviet 5th Panzer Army under General Lisjukov began a counterattack northwest of Voronezh. The fighting against the von Weichs army group led to failure on July 14th and 15th, the failed 5th Panzer Army was defeated and disbanded. On July 23, the command post of the Brjansk Front (now under Lieutenant General Tschibissow ) in the Luchino area was threatened by broken German forces.
On July 2nd, parts of the German 6th Army in the area north-east of Stary Oskol reached the union with troops of the 4th Panzer Army, in the resulting pocket only about 4 divisions of the Soviet 40th and 21st Armies were cut off and captured. The XXIV. And XXXXVIII. Panzer Corps of the 4th Panzer Army pushed further south, reached Rossosh on July 7th and from there in a fan shape on July 9th, Mihailowka. This opened the way for the German 6th Army advancing from the west on July 10th and 11th via the Aidar section and unlocking their infantry to the Kalitwa . The 4th Panzer Army had covered about 300 kilometers within 9 days, the 6th Army was unlocked by July 15 after 160 to 200 kilometers advance on the Don to Serafimowitsch . The Italian 8th Army , which deployed via Kantemirowka on the northern wing of the 6th Army, was assigned the task of securing the approximately 270 km long section of the front along the Don between Novaia Kalitwa via Kazanskaya to Serafimowitsch.
From July 8, the attack began in the south as well. First with the 1st Panzer Army , which from July 11th pushed between Jsjum and Slavjansk on the Donets and then in the second phase of the campaign with the Ruoff Army Group ( 17th Army and Romanian 3rd Army) and the LVII. Panzer Corps launched the attack on Rostov .
Hitler ran the company from his Werwolf headquarters near Vinnitsa in western Ukraine. Due to the favorable course of the company and the weak resistance, he came to the opinion that the opponent was in the process of dissolution. It was deviated from the original plan to allow for faster pursuit across the board. On July 9, Hitler had Army Group South split up into Army Group A with the target Caucasus (under the code name Edelweiss ) and Army Group B with the target Stalingrad and flank cover (under the code name Heron ). So both goals should be tackled at the same time.
Second phase
The 4th Panzer Army under Colonel General Hoth was subordinated to Army Group A during the advance into the Caucasus in mid-July, so that the advance on Stalingrad fell to the 6th Army alone for the time being. In addition, seven divisions were branched off from the Crimea as well as AOK 11 for use on the Volkhov Front . Because he protested against this conduct of operations, the commander-in-chief of Army Group South / B Fedor von Bock was replaced by Maximilian von Weichs on July 15 .
Attack of Army Group A
On July 23, the III. and LVII. Panzer Corps after heavy fighting to capture the city of Rostov at the mouth of the Don. By July 28, bridgeheads had been formed on the Lower Don. Stalin now gave the defense of the Volga line absolute priority, called in new formations and categorically forbade any further retreat in his famous Order No. 227 (“Don't step back!”). On July 31, Hitler had to change the distribution of forces again. Due to the sudden tough resistance in the Donbogen, the 4th Panzer Army was not released for Army Group A, but was supposed to take part in the main attack on Stalingrad.
The 5th Army Corps of the 17th Army and the Romanian 3rd Army turned from the southern bridgehead of Rostov in a southward direction via Tichorezk into the Kuban area . The beginning of September on the peninsula Kerch placed 46th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht commander in the Crimea (General Command XXXXII. AK ) and Romanian organizations secured the peninsula Taman . The XXXX. Panzer Corps of the 1st Panzer Army reached the foothills of the Caucasus on August 9, which corresponded to an advance of 500 kilometers in less than two weeks. However, the diverging directions of attack and the vastness of the operating room posed insoluble problems for supply logistics. The from III. The oil fields of Maikop reached by the tank corps were so permanently destroyed by the Soviet defenders before their retreat from the city that, despite the intensive efforts of the Technical Brigade Mineral Oil (TBM), they were not available for months and therefore not to the extent originally planned for improvement could contribute to the fuel supply of the German armies. The advance came to a standstill because of a lack of supplies and the resistance of the Transcaucasus front . On September 10, Hitler replaced General Field Marshal Wilhelm List as Commander in Chief of Army Group A and took over its leadership directly.
Attack of Army Group B
On August 11th, the 6th Army won the Kesselschlacht near Kalatsch and then continued to advance. When the 6th Army crossed the Don on August 21, Army Group B was able to take up defensive positions along the river that were less than 60 kilometers from Stalingrad . The Luftwaffe, which temporarily relocated more than half of its operational aircraft to the area of Army Group B, used this for massive air raids on the city, in which it was largely reduced to rubble and more than 40,000 people died. On August 23, the spearheads of the XIV Panzer Corps reached the Volga north of Stalingrad.
The 6th Army in the north and the 4th Panzer Army further south were supposed to enclose the Soviet 62nd and 64th Armies , which were already badly battered. On August 29, the 4th Panzer Army began the offensive as planned and advanced far in the direction of Stalingrad. Since the 6th Army, however, was still busy fending off a Russian counter-attack, they could attack until three days later that the Soviet armies was a possibility from the boiler to escape. It was not until September 10 that German units reached the outskirts of Stalingrad and began the attack on the city . The Soviet high command gained time to bring in new reserves from other sections of the front and to deploy troops in the rear.
Result
From a German point of view, the successes of the offensive initially appeared to be impressive. By the onset of winter, the Wehrmacht had occupied large parts of the area between the Black and Caspian Seas. The oil fields of Maikop were under German control, on the summit of Elbrus was Reichskriegsflagge been hoisted. It had also been possible to use the western bank of the Don as a line of defense and to occupy a small part of Stalingrad. However, it had not been possible to decisively defeat the Red Army.
The 6th Army was forced into a protracted house-to-house war with many losses in Stalingrad. At the same time, the northern flank, especially between the Don and the Volga, was not adequately secured and very susceptible to flank attacks. On the Terek , the front was frozen in trench warfare. The bases of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet could also be held by the Red Army.
The Blau case thus turned out to be a strategic failure for the Wehrmacht, whose position at the end of the offensive was significantly more endangered than before, regardless of the space gained. Despite the dilution of the original plans by Hitler, the main weaknesses lay in the structure of the offensive: The enormous expansion of the operational area overstrained the available human and material capacities and made it almost impossible to supply the fighting units with sufficient supplies.
In mid-November, the Red Army used the overstretched front lines and their inadequate security for a massive counterattack in the Stalingrad area , which led to the destruction of the 6th Army after the encirclement on November 19, 1942 and the battle of Stalingrad that lasted several months . This defeat and other Soviet offensives put the entire southern wing in danger, which resulted in the withdrawal of the German units from the Caucasus. By February 1943, large parts of the areas conquered in summer and autumn 1942 were lost again.
See also
literature
- Antony Beevor: Stalingrad. Goldmann, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-442-15101-5 .
- Horst Boog , Werner Rahn, Reinhard Stumpf, Bernd Wegner: The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 6: The global war - the expansion to the world war and the change of the initiative 1941 to 1943 , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1990. ISBN 978 -3-421-06233-8 .
- Walter Hubatsch: Hitler's instructions for warfare 1939–1945. Documents of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. Ed. Dörfler, Utting 2000, ISBN 3-89555-173-2 .
- Andreas Hillgruber, Walter Hubatsch, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, Percy Ernst Schramm: Diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht 1940–1945. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn, ISBN 3-7637-5933-6 .
- John Ray: The Daily Telegraph - illustrated history of the Second World War. Weidenfeld & Nicholson Military, London 2003, ISBN 0-297-84663-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ MGFA (ed.): The German Reich and the Second World War . Stuttgart 1990, Volume 6, p. 1095.
- ^ PE Schramm: War diary of the OKW , Teilband 1/1942, p. 304.
- ^ PE Schramm: War diary of the OKW, Teilband 1/1942, p. 316.
- ^ William B. Breuer: Deceptions of World War II , Wiley 2001, p. 134 ( online ).
- ↑ Barton Biggs: Wealth, War and Wisdom , Wiley 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-47479-2 , p. 234 ( online ).