Chapter 80 Rivno

For all the reasons mentioned above, our army group did its best to prevent the enemy from breaking through the center of its front in February.While its right wing still held firm in the Dnieper Bend, it first relieved itself of the danger of being cut off.Then they rescued the two armies in the Zilkasai encirclement.When these tasks have been completed, our attention will inevitably turn to the developments in the north of the Army Group area. At this time, the front of the Fourth Panzer Army was facing the northeast, which was actually quite continuous, from the northeast of Vinnytsia to the west of the small town of Shepetovka.The latter was about fifty miles directly north of Proskurov, the headquarters of the Army Group.At Shipitovka, the army's continuous front came to an end.This front was about 150 miles long, and three corps commanded nine divisions to defend five infantry, two armored, and two armored infantry divisions, long weakened but still capable of fighting.At present the pressure on the army's front has eased, and the enemy's advance has been suspended.Even so, it is obvious that the Fourth Armored Army will never be able to fight against a far superior enemy with such strength.

But at the same time there is another danger, which is far more serious for the status of the entire army group.In front of the western flank of Fourth Panzer Army, extending as far as the southern boundary of Army Group Center to the north, there is now a large void in which there is almost no German presence.Sooner or later, the enemy will launch a large-scale detour against the Fourth Panzer Army from this area, which means that the entire Southern Army Group is surrounded.Even if the northern Pinsk Marshes of this vacuum were not suitable for any large-scale operations, there was still a land bridge forty miles wide from east to west in front of Fourth Panzer Army.The road from Kiev to Rivne via Zhytomyr also passes there.

To block the land bridge, the army group had moved XIII Corps to its extreme northern flank.The latter was led by Gen. Hauffe, my former chief of staff when I was commander of the 38th Army.In March 1944, he unfortunately died at the head of his troops.From February to March, with a very small number of troops, General Howe stopped the advance of the enemy on both sides of the road, and repeatedly escaped the conical movement of the far more powerful enemy.In the north, within the Pinsk swamp region, there are other police units guarding the large railway from Kiev to Poland. Of course, facing a huge advantage, it is difficult for the lone Thirteenth Army to delay the enemy's advance for too long.Already in early February, the town of Rivne had been captured, with the result that XIII Army had to retreat west towards Dubmo.

The governor of Ukraine, Koch, was originally stationed in Rivne, so of course he slipped away without losing the opportunity.Hitler wanted to kill the general responsible for the fall of the town, and, according to Zeisler, even Keitel demanded that the top commander there be shot immediately.Chaisler strongly objected, persuading Hitler to listen to the opinions of the generals.Goering also intervened, saying: Oh, you can't do this, if you do, you will lose the dignity of the head of state.Not only is this something that Goering should not be involved in, but he also has the last right to accuse others of not doing their job.It may also prove how much he hated the generals and the army as a whole.In fact, Hitler did not accept the proposal of Keitel and Goering, but only ordered an investigative court. As a result, the officer who was originally accused was not guilty, but the division commander in charge of the Rivne area was sentenced to death.Later, because of my explanation, Hitler still pardoned him.

Now let's go back to the Fourth Panzer Army.Although I have said that there is no present threat to the front of this army group, it is clear that the vast territory to the north, defended by only a handful of troops, will soon become the basis of the enemy's offensive.The enemy could head west toward Lviv and detour the army south. In order to prevent this danger, our army group has repeatedly called for the concentration of an army in the Rivne area, but it has never been done.The Supreme Command neither drew troops from elsewhere (such as Army Group North or the Crimea), nor did it allow Army Group South to freely move its southern flank.

Needless to say, after the battle of Zilkasai, the headquarters of the army group had already drawn a strong force from the center of its front to the left flank, and by March 15th it had reached its designated position.But we emphasized to Army Headquarters that these forces would at best stabilize the front of Fourth Panzer Army in the event of another large-scale attack, and that they would not be able to cope with a large roundabout movement on the army's western flank. .Because the decision of the battle is destined to be on the northern flank, additional troops must be added to the latter.For the time being, however, the Supreme Command has not yet taken any decisive measures in this regard.

Obviously, Hitler assumed that the enemy's offensive strength had long been exhausted.In addition, he also thought that the mud season would be imminent enough to prevent the Russian army from taking any large-scale actions.It is true that our offensive in mid-February to save the two corps in the Zilkasse pocket was halted by mud, rain and snow.But it would be premature to think that the real mud season has arrived. As for waiting for the exhaustion of the enemy's offensive power, we must first consider the weakened strength of our own troops.For Army Headquarters' consideration, the Army Groups provided a set of figures showing relative losses and replenishments on both sides.

We know from many interrogations of prisoners of war that between July 1943 and January 1944 the enemy forces facing us had received a total of about 1.08 million reinforcements.This figure is equivalent to the losses suffered by the enemy in the same period.On the contrary, the losses suffered by Army Group South during the same period, including casualties and missing persons, amounted to 45,409 men.A total of 221,893 supplementary persons were obtained.Therefore, although the enemy's losses are far greater than ours, and the combat value of his infantry is deteriorating, the balance of forces still puts us at a disadvantage.

In terms of armored units, the present strength of a tank corps in Russia averages fifty to one hundred tanks, with one exception being only twenty.The planned establishment is 200 | 250 vehicles.In contrast, our own armored divisions have no more than thirty tanks that can be used for combat.Only the recently transferred armored divisions are doing better, the others are going from bad to worse.Altogether, the enemy facing us has received approximately 2,700 new tanks at this stage, while our side, including self-propelled assault guns, has only 872.The above figures do not take into account the enemy's large reserves.

The figures provided by the armies to which we belong are significant.Of course there is some repetition, especially in the number of tanks destroyed.According to this estimate, the enemy's losses were as follows: Moon Prisoner Tank Field Artillery Anti-Tank Artillery January 17,653, 2,873, 588, 2,481 February seven thousand seven hundred and fifty-five two hundred and eight hundred and fifty-five These figures are enough to show that the Red Army is already very substantial in terms of equipment at this stage.They no longer have to use crowd tactics.Furthermore these figures show how disproportionate the number of captives was to the amount of material captured and destroyed.Either the Russians often gave up their heavy weapons to avoid capture (which might also indicate low fighting morale), or they must have suffered heavy casualties.

As for Hitler's own attitude, I had a telephone conversation with General Zeisler on February 18, which was of great significance.After pointing out the dangers to be expected on our northern flank, I had called his attention to the fact that the ratio of our forces was even worse than ours compared with other army groups.The following is an excerpt from the conversation recorded by my staff officer: Chai: I have had another long discussion with the Führer on this issue and detailed its possible consequences, but there is still no result. Me: So what does he think about our future operations? Chai: He said that the Russian army will definitely stop attacking soon.They've been attacking non-stop since July last year, so it's impossible to get in again.So I asked, my Fuehrer, what would you do if you were a Russian?He said: Nothing.I just told him: Well, I will definitely attack, I will definitely hit Lviv! It was clear, however, that Hitler continued to hope that fatigue and weather would bring the enemy offensive to an end.He told us that by May a new division would be at his disposal.Perhaps the situation would have been different had he been able to supplement our combat-experienced divisions with the required men and equipment.