Chapter 66 Chapter 14 Battle of the Acropolis

As we have said in the previous chapter, the winter campaign between 1942 and 1943 began with the breakthrough of the Russian army on the Don and Volga rivers on both sides of Stalingrad, and ended in did not give the Russian High Command the decisive success it hoped for. The question now was how the German army should continue fighting over the course of a summer.It was clear that, after losing many major units, the Germans no longer had the strength to mount another offensive of the magnitude of 1941 and 1942.But with proper leadership on the part of the Germans there is still the possibility of trying to wear down the enemy's strength so much that he is finally willing to accept a deadlock peace.In the circumstances at the time, it was by no means an illusion.However, switching to purely defensive static warfare still cannot achieve this goal.At this point, the German army does not have enough divisions to defend the long line of defense from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.The second point is that the Russian army may wait until the Western Allies land in Europe before taking action. Because of the reversal of the war in North Africa, this crisis has become increasingly urgent.

If the German army wanted to create a stalemate on the Eastern Front, it already felt that time was running out.To achieve this goal, it is necessary to adopt a strategic defensive position, use localized strong blows to consume the enemy's forces to a decisive degree, and most importantly, capture a large number of its troops.The prerequisite for this is operational flexibility, and because the German command organization and combat units are still of superior quality, we still have the upper hand. We had naturally considered what the Russian High Command would do once the mud season was over.Would Stalin have waited until his Western allies had landed in Europe before taking action?While this seems like a perfectly natural idea, there are in fact many arguments against it.Because of the great success in the campaign last autumn, there is no doubt that it has also increased the self-confidence of the Russians.Also, from a psychological point of view, the Russian leaders have already chanted slogans about the liberation of Russia's sacred lands. Would they be ashamed to stop halfway?And whether the Russians wanted to grab the Balkans before their allies, a traditional goal of Russian expansionists.

Assuming that the enemy is about to resume its offensive after replenishing its losses, it seems certain that its main force will still point to the southern flank of the German army, that is, to attack the Southern Army Group. A prominent area of ​​the German front, from the junction of the Donets and Mis rivers to the vicinity of Kharkov, including the important industrial and mining areas to the south of the city, seems to be awaiting the enemy's attack. to be cut off.If the enemy achieves his breakthrough near Kharkov, or even crosses the middle reaches of the Donets, he will still be able to achieve what he failed to achieve during the previous winter, and to encircle and wipe out the entire German army on the Black Sea. south wing. (Army Group A is still in the Kuban peninsula at this time!) This same blow would also enable him to regain the valuable Donets region and Ukrainian grains, and open up the road to the Balkans and Romanian oil fields, and for Turkey There can also be political implications.Nowhere else on the Eastern Front could Russia gain more military, economic and political benefits than here.Therefore, Russia's decisive offensive will definitely be aimed at the army group in the south. However, because Russia has a numerical advantage, it is naturally possible to launch smaller-scale offensives in other areas to gain momentum.

Army Group South has several times reminded Army Headquarters and Hitler that they should pay attention to this trend.The final decision that the latter should make is to judge from the overall situation, should we wait for the Russian army to launch an offensive, and then launch a heavy counterattack?Or should we strike preemptively and make a limited strike within the structure of strategic defense? The Army Group Headquarters advocated the former option.Because it is more promising in terms of operations, and has already presented Hitler with a draft plan in February. Sooner or later an auxiliary offensive will be launched near Kharkov, and our arc along the Donets and Mis rivers should be abandoned according to the predetermined timetable in order to lure the enemy westward. It tends towards the lower reaches of the Don River.At the same time, all available reserves, especially the main force of the armored forces, should be concentrated in the area west of Kharkov, first destroying the enemy's attacking forces that can be found there, and then going straight to the area. The flank of the advancing enemy forces on the lower reaches of the Don.In this way, not only will the enemy not be able to encircle and annihilate our army on the Black Sea, but it will suffer the same fate on the Azov coast.

But this plan was never approved by Hitler.He still favors the economic value of the Donets Basin and fears that even a temporary retreat will affect the attitudes of Turkey and Romania.But his biggest prejudice is that we should fight for every inch of the land he won from Stalin in the winter of 1941. He has always been very conceited about his own achievements, thinking that only in this way can the German army Avoid making a Napoleonic retreat.But besides, he no doubt felt that the project was too risky.Maybe he didn't believe that he had such an ability in his heart. Although he was indeed very sensitive to tactics sometimes, he still lacked the ability of a famous general.

We are therefore now preoccupied with preemptive strikes, which in turn must be a limited head-on strike before the Russians recover their losses of the Winter Campaign. The Russians had formed a salient area around the city of Kursk, which seemed to be a very desirable target.The Russian army in this area faced the two German army groups, the center and the south. Of course, both sides stood still during the muddy season.However, when the Russian army is about to launch an offensive, it will use this as a springboard to attack the side of our army group.Suppose our attack can be successful.Then a considerable number of Russian troops in this prominent area will be wiped out.The condition, however, is that we must act quickly and early so as to surprise the enemy.In particular, the enemy's inevitable use of his armored units, which had suffered heavy losses in the final stages of the Winter Campaign, gave us the opportunity to wipe them all out.

This brings us to the so-called Operation Citadel.This was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front.To launch this attack prominently on Kursk, Army Group South provided the strength of two armies: the Fourth Panzer Army and the Kenff Army, for a total of eleven armored or armored infantry divisions and five infantry divisions.For this purpose, of course, the forces on the Donets and Meuse rivers must be drawn down considerably. For the attack from the north, Army Group Center provided the strength of Ninth Army, which consisted of six armored or armored infantry divisions and five infantry divisions.The main danger in this respect is that the army must be concentrated in a salient east of Arnel, while the enemy can attack its rear from the east and north.

The timing of the Acropolis operation was decided to start in the first half of June, because by that time the ground might have been dry enough, but the enemy had still not completed its repair work and especially its armored forces. However, at the beginning of May, Hitler, contrary to the advice of the two army commanders-in-chief, insisted on delaying the start of the operation until June, because he believed that by then, our armored divisions would be able to obtain new tanks and be more stable. enhanced its strength.Even when we pointed out to him that, due to developments in Tunisia, if the start of the Acropolis operation were delayed any longer, there would be a danger that the result would coincide with the enemy's landing on the Continent. Hitler still insisted on his own opinion. , At the same time, he never realized that the longer the time goes on, the more tanks the Russian army will have, because their tank output undoubtedly exceeds that of Germany.Because of the delay in the delivery of our own new tanks, it turned out that our army group could not launch the Acropolis Operation until the beginning of July. By then, the benefit of striking first would have been lost.The original concept of this battle was to take advantage of the enemy's reinforcements to attack first.And it is also inevitable that the longer we wait, the greater the threat to the troops of Army Group South in the Donets-Meas salient, since all their armor has been drawn away.Similarly, Arnel, who jumped out of the base as the Ninth Army of the Central Army Group, also felt more threatened.

On July 5, the Germans were finally able to attack.Although we exhausted all means of deception and camouflage, but because of the long delay, we were finally unable to make the enemy completely unaware and feel the surprise attack. With regard to Army Group Center, Ninth Army was able to penetrate the enemy's fortified lines to a depth of about nine miles in the first two days.After a bitter fight, it defeated the counterattack of the enemy's reserve and continued to advance for several miles.It was not until the 9th of July that the advance finally came to a standstill, as a dominant high ground behind the enemy's front blocked its approach.The army did not plan to wait a few days before attacking, but the enemy thwarted its plan, and the latter made a massive attack on the Arnel salient from the north and northeast on July 11.In order to support the Second Panzer Army defending the area, the headquarters of the Central Army Group had to withdraw a strong mobile force from the Ninth Army.

The development of the offensive on the southern side of Army Group was more favorable.Here, too, it was necessary to penetrate the enemy's defensive positions in depth, so progress was equally difficult and slow.But on July 11, it finally reached the Prokhorovka and Obcyan regions.A counterattack by the enemy mobile reserve was also defeated at this time, and all ten enemy tank or mechanized corps were routed and suffered heavy losses.By July 13th, the enemy troops facing the Army Group to the South had captured a total of 24,000 people, lost 1,800 tanks, 267 field guns, and 1,080 anti-tank guns. ten doors.

On July 13, when the fighting reached its climax and victory seemed imminent, the commanders-in-chief of the two army groups were summoned by Hitler to report.He is in a meeting.It was first announced that the Western Allies had landed in Sicily, so a serious reversal of circumstances had occurred.The Italians didn't even want to resist, the island was already lost.Since the next Allied move might be to land in the Balkans or southern Italy, it was necessary to form a new army in both Italy and the western Balkans.These forces must be drawn from the Eastern Front, so the Acropolis operation must be stopped.This is exactly what I warned Hitler about in May, unfortunately. Field Marshal Kruger, commander-in-chief of the Central Army Group, reported that the Ninth Army could no longer advance, and he must withdraw all his mobile forces to prevent the enemy from penetrating into the Arnel salient area.Therefore, the battle for the Acropolis could no longer continue.As far as our army group is concerned, I pointed out that the battle has just reached its climax, and that to get rid of the battle at this time is tantamount to giving up victory.We must at least completely defeat the enemy's mobile reserve. Nevertheless, Hitler decided to stop the Acropolis operation based on the situation in the Mediterranean and Army Group Center. His only concession was that Army Group South should continue to attack until it achieved its goal of smashing the enemy's armored reserves.In fact, even this was not possible, since a few days later our army group was ordered to hand over several armored divisions to Army Group Center.As a result, the assault forces of the two armies withdrew to their original starting positions. The last offensive of the German army on the Eastern Front ended in this way. Even so, the enemy forces facing the southern army group lost more than four times the German army in terms of prisoners, deaths, and injuries.