Kharkov, battles of

Kharkov, battles of. The fifth largest Soviet city and main administrative and railway centre in the eastern Ukraine, Kharkov acquired the unique distinction of having been the object of five battles and changing hands four times during the German–Soviet war. During the first phase of the war (see BARBAROSSA), on 24 October 1941, after a slow approach against stiffening Soviet resistance, the Sixth German Army took the city, its last major objective in that year's campaign, and stopped a week later 40 km. (25 mi.) to the east, on the River Donets.

Although meanders reduced the river's defensive value, particularly south of Kharkov where it made a deep westward bend, the front remained reasonably stable through the winter; and Hitler decided to begin his 1942 summer offensive there. On its side, the Soviet General Staff (seeStavka), under orders from Stalin to mount ‘pre-emptive blows’ in all threatened sectors, devised a complicated plan calling for five armies to cross the Donets 120 km. (75 mi.) south-west of Kharkov and carve out a bulge large enough to engulf the city. The execution, begun on 12 May 1942, fell to Marshal Timoshenko's South-West front (army group). After driving his armies in deep, on 17 May Timoshenko committed two tank corps to complete the advance to Kharkov; but on that day the Sixth and First Panzer armies launched converging thrusts along the Donets from the north and south. Timoshenko stopped the tanks 25 km. (15 mi.) short of Kharkov on 20 May, too late to bring them into play against the German spearheads, which trapped his armies in an encirclement three days later. At the end, on 28 May, Timoshenko had lost over a quarter of a million troops and 1,200 tanks.

On 11 February 1943, late in the Soviet post-Stalingrad offensive, two armies belonging to General N. F. Vatutin's Voronezh front crossed the Donets east of Kharkov; and Hitler ordered three SS panzer divisions to hold the city as a fortress, which by his definition meant to the death. On 16 February, encircled and having to contend also with an uprising in the city, the divisions disregarded Hitler's order and broke out to the south. After driving south 186 km. (115 mi.) to link up with General Hermann Hoth's Fourth Panzer Army, the SS divisions reversed course and were back on 9 March bent on restoring their honour. Disobeying an order from Hoth to bypass Kharkov, they plunged straight in on 11 March and in three days of exceedingly vicious fighting swept through the city. Encouraged by the victory, on 13 March, Hitler issued a directive for Operation CITADEL in which Kharkov would provide the staging area for the southern arm of an offensive to pinch off the Kursk salient.

The Soviet defensive success at Kursk in July 1943, and the immense quantities of troops, tanks, and aircraft assembled for the battle, enabled 14 Soviet armies, at least 1.5 million troops, to go over to the offensive on 3 August. Kharkov, now the northern anchor of the whole German front in the Ukraine, was the first objective; and against it, Konev's Steppe front launched four armies. After repeated refusals, Hitler allowed Kharkov to be evacuated on 22 August 1943.

Earl Ziemke