Chapter 59 Phase Three: The Struggle to Clear the Lines of Communication on the Southern Wing Operational Situation in Mid-January 1943

By mid-January 1943, the combat situation on the southern flank of the Eastern Front had reached a desperate stage.The seeds were sown in the late autumn of 1942, when our military command had frozen our front on a line that was impossible to hold in the long run.Since around Christmas 1942, the last hope of the Sixth Army breaking out had been completely lost.Only because of the bitter fighting of the German officers and soldiers, a greater tragedy never happened. The Sixth Army had sealed its fate.All it can do now is to fight off its limited forces and try to contain the powerful enemy forces. This is also the last effort it can make to its comrades in the Don River Bay and the Caucasus.Obviously, after the annihilation of the Sixth Army, although the Caucasus region reduced its defense zone, it still could not hold on any longer.

But thanks to the hard work of the Fourth Armored Army, Army Group A finally got a last chance. Even if the Caucasus is lost, Army Group A will not die together.Originally the most dangerous part was its east wing, but now it has been safely withdrawn.Although the 1st Panzer Army was still a hundred and ninety miles from the Rostov crossing point, it was out of the mountains and its rear no longer felt threatened.It can now at least carve out a way out on its own should things go bad. In the area between the Don and the Donets it was still possible to prevent the enemy from advancing towards Rostov and at the same time preventing them from advancing from the north into the rear of the three armies south of the lower Don.However, it is obvious that neither Holliday's army nor Ferit|Pike group is enough to prevent the enemy from crossing the Donets River from Kamensk and Shakhtinsky after the strength of the enemy is strengthened. (Note: Battlegroup Ferit|Pico is now fighting near Mirirov. It includes the headquarters of the 30th Army, the 3rd Mountain Division and the 304th Infantry Division.) If the enemy reaches there, Then you can freely go straight to Rostov from the northwest, or even rush all the way to the Sea of ​​Azov.

To make matters worse, around this time, the middle Don sector in the Army Group B area, defended by the Hungarian Army, began to collapse under a new enemy offensive.The connection line to the north also collapsed, and Army Group B hoped to push its forces behind the Aidar River, as far as Starobiersk.In other words, from Froshilovgrad to the lower Donets area, the door will become wide open.All in all, within a few days this wing of the army group would practically cease to exist.Going north from Froshilovgrad, a large gap has been exposed, and only the isolated remnants of Army Group B are still making partial resistance there.Hungarian troops, like Italian troops, have since withdrawn from the field.

This seemed inevitable, and Army Headquarters, with its existing reserves, could not have hoped to plug the hole.In any case, as far as Army Group Don is concerned, if you want to prevent the enemy from encircling Army Group Don and Army Group A, you need to leapfrog a strong force from the area south of the Don River to the middle reaches of the Donets River. It seems that it has indeed arrived.But the Supreme Command still refused to agree.Perhaps it could not have imagined that the future would be dire if we did not build up our forces in this region between the Donets and the Dnieper; otherwise it deliberately ignored the dangers of the present situation.

Hitler still didn't want to give up the Caucasus.He also thought he could maintain a defensive line south of the Don that would at least hold the oil fields of Maikop.His minimum requirement is to maintain a huge bridgehead position on the Kuban River, so that he can achieve the goal of seizing the Caucasus oil fields again in the future. So in the next few weeks, our army group was forced to continue to fight hard on both sides of the Don River in order to cover the systematic retreat of Army Group A.At this time, there was a heated debate between us and the Supreme Command over the concept of leapfrogging our forces into the Donets region.What was at issue was not only a question of principle, but also the question of how many troops in Army Group A should pass through Rostov and withdraw to this decisive battlefield.From the point of view of the whole operation, it seems to us a naive fantasy to keep a considerable amount of Army Group A in the Kuban bridgehead area.