Ukraine, Second Battle of November 1943–April 19441107 Kirponos was killed during the fi ghting in September and several senior Soviet generals and Commissars were captured.. On the liber
Trang 1Ukraine, Second Battle of (November 1943–April 1944)
1107
Kirponos was killed during the fi ghting in September and several senior Soviet
generals and Commissars were captured Stalin had three of the prisoner
gen-erals condemned to death in absentia Two of the men were arrested in 1945
after they were found among freed prisoners, and executed in 1950 on Stalin’s
order The third man had actually been killed in action in 1941 Only that fact
spared him execution It did not spare him undeserved dishonor and prolonged
persecution of his family: the extended families of soldiers who surrendered
in 1941 became liable to immediate arrest by the NKVD ; most remained under
suspicion and were denied jobs and benefi ts for decades Many krasnoarmeets
re-turning home in 1945 after four years of sheer hell in some German POW camp
were arrested on charges of desertion and treason Hundreds of thousands were
shot by their own side; others were shipped directly to forced labor camps in the
GULAG
On the liberation of Ukraine, see references under Ukrainian campaign
(1943–1944)
UKRAINE, SECOND BATTLE OF (NOVEMBER 1943–APRIL 1944) The
initial Soviet offensive on the Lower Dnieper River, the Battle of the Dnieper (1943),
stalled after failure of a major airborne operation at Kanev and protracted inability
to expand the bridgehead A hard pressed toehold on the far bank was insuffi
-ciently expanded or reinforced to permit a breakout Instead, General Nikolai
Vatu-tin brilliantly and secretly moved 3rd Guards Tank Army and other armored and
mobile forces of 1st Ukrainian Front northeast of Kiev After a screaming opening
artillery barrage, he sent his armor to strike the German lines on November 3
The advance overwhelmed the defenders and liberated Kiev three days later Field
Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South was stunned Vatutin built out
his bridgehead southwest of the city, toward Zhitomir Then Manstein recovered
and the Panzers counterattacked: Vatutin was driven back 45 miles The damage
could have been worse: Adolf Hitler held back reserves in the great Dnieper bend
250 miles away, precious armor and men desperately much needed farther north
But someone had to be blamed for the loss of the Soviet Union’s third great city, so
Hitler sacked his outstanding Panzer commander, General Hermann Hoth Vatutin
was similarly criticized by Joseph Stalin and the Stavka for excessive caution and
failing to exploit the breakthrough, but not relieved
Konev and Vatutin together followed up with the Zhitomir-Berdichev operation
(1943–1944) In these related operations the Red Army brought to the fi ght over
2.4 million soldiers in 19 tank corps and 171 rifl e divisions, each brimming with
improved tanks, assault guns, and aircraft Konev pressed ahead in sole command
of 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, nine armies in all General Rodion Y Malinovsky’s
3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, comprising another seven armies, took Nikopol on
February 8 and overran Krivoi Rog on the 22nd Konev bounced the Bug, Dniester,
and Pruth rivers in rapid succession by mid-March As they sped across
southwest-ern Ukraine his men passed the steel bones of thousands of Soviet tanks lost in
1941 and 1942 Odessa fell on April 10 Then the main lines stabilized along the
Dniester barrier Fighting was brutally hard and losses in men and machines on