BU BÖLÜM HAKKINDA
Last time we spoke about the second battle of Kharkiv. In Crimea, German armored thrusts move through difficult mud, creating a narrow escape corridor but eventually completing the encirclement of the Soviet 51st Army by reaching the Sea of Azov. Soviet attempts to counterattack fail because the 47th Army is too weak and lacks tank or artillery support, while communications to available artillery regiments are severed, leaving them idle. Soviet air coordination is also paralyzed by missing orders. The 51st Army surrenders, and many troops rout toward Kerch, where intense air attacks sink transport vessels and firebomb Kerch to hinder evacuation. As Soviet forces evacuate, a notable holdout forms in the Adzhimushkay Quarry, lasting 170 days despite shortages. Meanwhile, the Soviet offensive around Kharkiv initially breaks through German lines quickly and uses tank-heavy pressure. However, German counterattacks, air disruption, and, crucially, Soviet failure to commit reserves and mobile armor on time cause the breakthrough to stall.
This episode is Disaster at Donetz
Well hello there, welcome to the Eastern Front week by week podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800’s until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.
Last week Timoshenko launched his Southwestern Front into a daring offensive that had at first shaken the German 6th Army, creating deep breakthroughs that endangered the entire southern sector of the Eastern Front and possibly allowed the recapture of the key city of Kharkov. Now, this week, the German preparations to respond to Timoshenko—long in the planning and using carefully conserved reserves from Army Group South—were at last prepared to be released in a crushing counterstrike. In the far north, the occasional fighting in Finland and the Arctic theater once more started to quiet down, although this pause came at the high price of intensifying the already tense relations between Germany and its Finnish co-belligerent. Meanwhile, both Germany and the USSR kept up their urgent race against time and the elements to get ready for fresh large-scale battles around the vital axes of Moscow and Leningrad, where winter counteroffensives had left both sides exhausted but without resolution.
In Finland, the 3rd Corps’ counterattack near Kestenga stayed hopelessly bogged down amid the lingering effects of the spring rasputitsa, the seasonal thaw that turned roads and fields into quagmires of knee-deep mud. Three Finnish regiments had tried a flanking movement against the solidly entrenched Soviet positions, but the impassable terrain made any outflanking impossible, forcing the Germans to commit their own units to expensive frontal assaults in an effort to break the Soviet lines head-on. This grinding combat continued until May 21st, when the Soviets finally began an orderly withdrawal under pressure. Following closely behind them, elements of the 3rd Corps succeeded in regaining most of their original lines by the 23rd. At that point, however, General Siilasvuo ordered an immediate stop to further advances, even though this went against orders from General Dietl and left German and Finnish forces short of occupying the most favorable local defensive terrain in the surrounding hills and forests. Deeply worried that issuing a public rebuke might push the Finns toward abandoning the partnership altogether, Dietl reluctantly let Siilasvuo’s orders remain in place. Privately, though, Dietl acted to limit Siilasvuo’s authority to pull troops from the frontline, hoping to keep tighter operational control over future actions.
This relatively minor battle only served to further inflame the growing tensions between Finland and Germany that had been building since the previous autumn. Many German officers on the ground increasingly felt they were being forced to carry the bulk of the heavy lifting in what was supposed to be a joint partnership, with Finnish units often holding back from decisive engagements. The German liaison officer embedded with the 3rd Corps complained directly to Dietl that German troops had carried out virtually all of the intensive offensive operations within the corps since May 15th. Indeed, the Army of Lapland War Diary entry for May 23rd captured the broader German frustration in explicit terms: “In the course of the recent weeks the army has received the growing impression that the Commanding General, III Corps, either on his own initiative or on instructions from higher Finnish authorities, is avoiding all decisions that could involve Finnish troops in serious fighting.” This friction was symptomatic of a deeper and longstanding political reality: Finnish Commander-in-Chief Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim had never fully embraced Germany’s expansive strategic ambitions for the far north. As early as the autumn of 1941, he had made clear to his own government that Finland’s war aims remained strictly defensive and limited in scope. As Mannerheim later reflected candidly in his memoirs, Finland was “a co-belligerent, not an ally”—a subtle but vital distinction that the Germans found increasingly maddening and unsustainable as the grueling Arctic campaign dragged on without decisive progress.
By May 22nd the ice covering Lake Ladoga had finally melted enough to restore full nautical navigation after the long winter freeze. The steamer Gidrotekhnik, towing several heavily laden barges, became the first vessel to complete the critical supply run from Kobona on the eastern shore to Osinovets on the western side, delivering desperately needed food, fuel, and ammunition directly into besieged Leningrad. In its wake, a growing flotilla of additional vessels rapidly began to follow, reopening the vital “Road of Life” naval route that would sustain the city through the coming months of renewed German pressure.
Near Leningrad itself, the fighting flared up once again in the Lyuban salient as Soviet forces trapped there made a final, desperate bid for survival. After an entire week wasted in high-level debates over the precise details of their withdrawal plan, the encircled troops of the 2nd Shock Army finally attempted to escape their suffocating pocket. Yet instead of the orderly, phased withdrawal that Khozin and STAVKA had envisioned, the operation quickly devolved into chaotic and haphazard skirmishes across the swampy, forested terrain. The 2nd Shock Army had already suffered catastrophic losses, with 60 to 70 percent of its strength eroded by relentless combat, desertions, and the slow toll of starvation as food supplies dwindled to almost nothing. Command and control had collapsed to such an extent that entire Soviet formations began fragmenting into disorganized groups of survivors. Those units closest to the outer edges of the pocket surged eastward in a frantic bid to reach the safety of the Volkhov River, often abandoning equipment and wounded in the process.
Nevertheless, enough organized elements of the army still held together to maintain a viable perimeter, enabling them to beat back several probing German attacks. These German probes had been launched precisely because of the rising tide of Soviet deserters, who painted a picture of an army on the brink of total collapse. The deserters also confirmed that a general withdrawal was underway, a suspicion reinforced when German observers spotted large-scale troop movements exiting the corridor on May 21st and 22nd. Radio traffic interruptions further convinced the Germans that General Vlasov was relocating his command post. Vlasov himself later painted a harrowing picture of his army’s plight in a radio message to Leningrad Front headquarters, reporting that his men were reduced to “eating tree bark and leather” while ammunition stocks hovered near exhaustion. Appeals for emergency food drops and reinforcements went largely unheeded, as the logistical nightmare far exceeded the limited capacity of Soviet aviation to deliver meaningful aid under heavy German fighter cover.
Meanwhile, the parallel offensive by the neighboring 59th Army, intended to link up with and relieve the 2nd Shock Army, also ended in failure. Its divisions were woefully understrength, hampered by chronic shortages of artillery and tank support that left them unable to punch through determined German defenses. Compounding the problem, the narrow corridor formed a vulnerable junction between three separate Soviet armies that proved incapable of effective cooperation, with each headquarters operating in isolation and failing to synchronize efforts.
On May 21st, STAVKA issued urgent demands for the 2nd Shock Army to break out, accompanied by sweeping new orders for the entire Leningrad Front. These were formally codified as Stavka VGK directive no. 170406, addressed to the Leningrad Front commander and outlining the missions and reorganization of the Volkhov Group of Forces. The 8th, 54th, and 52nd Armies were instructed to remain strictly on the defensive, while the Front as a whole was tasked with clearing the Kirishi and Gruzino regions by June 1st. The 2nd Shock Army itself was ordered to withdraw, simultaneously eliminating the dangerous Spasskaia Polist’ bulge in coordination with the 59th Army. Once these immediate objectives were secured, the Volkhov grouping was to transition fully to the defensive along the entire line from Lake Ladoga to Novgorod. As part of the broader restructuring, the Volkhov grouping would be split into two distinct commands: the 54th and 8th Armies would form the new Ladoga group, while the 4th, 59th, 52nd, and 2nd Shock Armies would continue as the Volkhov Group proper. This reorganization reflected STAVKA’s growing recognition that fragmented command structures had contributed heavily to the recent disasters.
STAVKA went further, issuing detailed orders for the extensive improvement of fortifications held by the 54th, 8th, and 52nd Armies. It was deemed necessary to spell out even the most basic principles—such as constructing defenses in depth with mutually supporting lines of fire—because previous efforts had proven woefully inadequate. All positions were to be meticulously camouflaged, with special emphasis placed on defending population centers, key terrain features, and vital road junctions through dense networks of minefields and obstacles. Displaying an extraordinary degree of distrust in the local commanders’ competence, STAVKA explicitly required that minefield locations be carefully recorded on maps and reported upward. To bolster these efforts, heavy reinforcements were promised to begin arriving by mid-June, signaling Moscow’s determination to stabilize the northern theater before the Germans could renew their drive on Leningrad.
Last week had seen the dramatic opening of Timoshenko’s Kharkov offensive, which achieved early successes with a 56-kilometer-wide and 25-kilometer-deep advance that briefly threatened to unhinge the German southern flank. However, the northern prong had already stalled due to the unexpectedly swift commitment of German reserves, far earlier than Soviet intelligence had anticipated. The 38th Army found itself under ferocious combined-arms assaults from panzer units and the Luftwaffe, ultimately driven back to the defensive river line near Velyka Babka. There, a brutal war of attrition unfolded, rapidly drawing in six of the eight available Soviet tank brigades in the sector and consuming precious reserves of fuel and ammunition.
Meanwhile, the 28th Army had made painfully slow progress against a network of stubborn German village strongpoints, such as Ternova, which continued to be resupplied by Luftwaffe airdrops even after being bypassed. These localized fights had devoured a disproportionate share of the Southwestern Front’s logistical capacity and VVS air support, leaving the intended Mobile Group—meant to exploit any breakthroughs—idling uselessly some 20 kilometers behind the frontline, unable to capitalize on fleeting opportunities.
This pattern of intense, seesaw fighting carried over into the current week, with both sides launching repeated attacks and counterattacks across the muddy terrain. On May 17th, for instance, a coordinated German push by elements of the 71st and 168th Infantry Divisions, backed by the 3rd and 23rd Panzer Divisions, overwhelmed the Soviet 244th Rifle Division, forcing it to retreat alongside the neighboring 168th. The action not only relieved the long-besieged garrison at Ternova but also compelled a minor withdrawal by the 38th Army to safeguard its exposed flank. German panzers attempted to exploit the breakthrough, only to be halted cold by the determined stand of the 13th Guards Division on the 38th Army’s wing. It was during this very engagement that the first Order of the Patriotic War 1st Class was awarded—to Artillery Captain Krikly, whose battalion was credited with destroying 34 enemy tanks and blunting the entire German assault. Krikly himself was gravely wounded, and the vast majority of his gunners became casualties, yet the 13th Guards Division as a whole claimed to have accounted for over 100 panzers across its defensive actions in the sector.
Timely Soviet reinforcements eventually allowed the line to be stabilized between Pylna and Grafovka, prompting the 21st Army to be shifted onto the defensive. By the end of May 17th, only the 28th Army continued pressing the northern attack. That same evening, however, developments farther south forced Timoshenko to order both the 28th and 38th Armies back onto the offensive. The goal was to tie down the two German panzer divisions in the area and distract enemy reinforcements from the more critical southern sector. In reality, neither army possessed the strength to exert any meaningful influence on events unfolding to the south, highlighting the growing strain on Soviet command and resources.
Meanwhile, Golikov’s Bryansk Front saw its own supporting offensive formally cancelled on May 17th. General Bodin personally delivered the new directives to headquarters: the 40th Army was to launch an immediate attack, backed by the full weight of the Front’s VVS air assets, in order to relieve pressure on Timoshenko’s hard-pressed forces. Yet the 40th Army was nowhere near ready, plagued by incomplete mobilization and supply shortages. Despite Golikov traveling personally to the army headquarters to accelerate preparations, the attack came too late to matter. Bagramian would later lament this missed opportunity in his postwar writings, noting that the Front’s formidable strength—ten rifle divisions, eleven rifle brigades, and more than 300 tanks—could have dramatically altered the course of the entire Kharkov battle had it been committed in time.
Farther south, the Southern Shock Group had enjoyed greater initial success, carving out a penetration 40 kilometers deep across a 55-kilometer-wide front. Soviet spearheads reached the outskirts of Berestyn, and bridgeheads were secured across the Berestova River. These gains, however, had begun to exact a heavy toll on the assault formations, which had still not achieved the objectives originally projected for completion by May 15th. Ammunition shortages grew acute for the attackers, especially for Group Bobkin, which operated more than 190 kilometers from its nearest supply bases. By stark contrast, the German defenders—pushed back onto their own well-stocked depots around Berestyn—enjoyed virtually unlimited resupply. The second wave of Soviet forces remained uncommitted, held idle 20 to 42 kilometers behind the front, awaiting the elusive moment to exploit a breakthrough that never fully materialized.
Soviet intelligence initially believed that all local German reserves had already been committed, but reconnaissance soon revealed columns of reinforcements rushing toward Kharkov from as far afield as Belgorod and even Rostov. The Germans could move these forces freely thanks to the relative passivity of neighboring Soviet fronts. In addition, Army Group South was hurriedly feeding various German police, security, and auxiliary formations—including Romanian and Hungarian units—directly into the frontline to plug gaps and buy time for the panzers.
The German counteroffensive, launched by Kleist’s 1st Panzer Army as the southern pincer of Operation Fridericus, caught everyone by surprise. The Soviets had not anticipated any major enemy action from this direction, and somehow the 9th Army failed to detect the sudden arrival of three additional infantry divisions and an extra panzer division massed directly in front of its positions. For their part, the Germans had not expected the Soviet 9th Army to disintegrate so rapidly upon contact. Field Marshal von Bock had come close to cancelling Kleist’s offensive altogether, fearing phantom Soviet reserves west of the Donets River might trap the assault forces. Instead, Bock proposed an impractical alternative that would have required Kleist’s troops to somehow “teleport” across vast distances to threaten Dnipro and Poltava. Supported by both Kleist and Paulus, Hitler intervened decisively, overruling Bock and insisting that the original Fridericus plan be executed without deviation.
In practice, the German assault forces steamrolled most of the Soviet defenders, though isolated pockets mounted stubborn resistance. The Barvinkove garrison initially repelled the first German attacks but was forced to surrender later that day once the town was fully encircled. The 5th Cavalry Corps succeeded in holding Dovhenke despite receiving no orders, while the 333rd and 51st Rifle Divisions managed to retain control of key Donets River crossings. By nightfall on May 17th, the 3rd Panzer Corps had advanced an impressive 24 kilometers, with the supporting infantry of the 16th Army covering 27 kilometers in the same period.
In his memoirs, Bagramian would later complain bitterly about the Southern Front’s failures, describing Malinovskiy’s handling of reserves as “incomprehensible” and accusing the front of effectively handing the Germans an open flank on a silver platter. He wrote: “We had counted on the Southern Front to hold firm. Instead, within hours of Kleist’s blow, that flank had ceased to exist as a coherent defensive force.” Bagramian faulted Malinovskiy for squandering reserves earlier in unordered and unauthorized attacks—such as the recent fiasco against Mayaky—and for failing to entrench forces properly in anticipation of a German counterstroke. Those same reserves had been earmarked in Bagramian’s planning to repel any penetration of the 9th Army. Malinovskiy did manage to dispatch the 296th Rifle Division and 3rd Tank Brigade to shore up the Pisky-Radkivski crossing, and he officially transferred the battered 5th Cavalry Corps to the 9th Army, retroactively endorsing their earlier independent actions.
Yet the sheer speed of the German advance quickly overwhelmed Soviet command structures. By the end of May 17th, Malinovskiy had lost contact with both the 9th Army headquarters and the committed reserves. Compounding the disaster, the 9th and 57th Armies had been deployed in a single, shallow defensive echelon only about four kilometers deep, with no meaningful divisional reserves held back. Fortification work had been neglected, leaving both armies dangerously exposed. Readiness levels remained low due to staff negligence, and the Southern Front’s VVS contributed almost nothing—managing just 62 sorties on May 17th against more than 2,000 flown by the Luftwaffe, which dominated the skies and hammered Soviet columns relentlessly.
Because several high-profile figures from the Southwestern Front—including the future Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev—were directly involved, the precise details of the Soviet high command’s response remain clouded by postwar political disputes and attempted cover-ups. Contemporary evidence suggests, however, that both STAVKA and the Southwestern Direction commands initially viewed the German threat as manageable and easily containable through local reserves. Timoshenko directed the 23rd Tank Corps toward the 56th Army’s sector with orders to counterattack toward Barvinkove by May 18th. STAVKA released two rifle divisions and two tank brigades to reinforce the collapsing 9th Army, though these units would require three full days to reach the battlefield. Internal debates raged over whether the 6th Army should halt its own offensive to free up strength for a counterblow against Kleist, but Timoshenko and his staff remained confident they could contain the German thrust while pressing onward toward Kharkov.
Consequently, on May 18th the Soviet Sixth Army pressed its attack forward. In several sectors, tanks achieved local breakthroughs, yet every penetration was swiftly sealed off by aggressive German counterattacks, leaving the frontline essentially unchanged from dawn. At the same time, the 9th Army continued its rapid collapse, with panic beginning to infect the neighboring 56th Army. Neither formation mounted a coherent defense, allowing German forces to reach the Donets River north of Izyum with alarming ease.
In the years after the war, Khrushchev and Bagramyan would insist they had urged an immediate halt to the 6th Army’s offensive once Kleist’s threat became clear, claiming that Stalin, Vasilevskiy, and Timoshenko stubbornly refused to alter course. Khrushchev’s memoirs recount a personal telephone call to Stalin on May 18th in which he pleaded for cancellation, only to be told curtly, “The offensive must proceed. Timoshenko reports the situation is under control.” Khrushchev claimed he felt “sick with dread” upon hanging up. Vasilevskiy maintained that he too had tried to warn Stalin directly, receiving the reply, “Do not panic. Trust the Front commanders.” Yet Zhukov offered a sharply contradictory account in his own memoirs, Reminiscences and Reflections, asserting he had been present for the conversations and heard no such alarms from Khrushchev or Bagramyan. Archival records of contemporaneous reports and radio messages strongly support Zhukov’s version, suggesting the postwar claims were crafted largely to shield personal reputations after the disaster.
Meanwhile, Bock and Kleist grew increasingly uneasy, worried they might be walking into a Soviet trap because of the puzzling absence of any meaningful enemy reaction. Their original intent had been merely to draw Soviet forces away from the beleaguered German 6th Army, yet the Soviets appeared to ignore the threat entirely. Bock confided to his diary on May 18th: “Kleist’s advance is proceeding almost too smoothly. The enemy does not react. I cannot escape the feeling that we are missing something—that reserves are being withheld and will fall upon us suddenly.” The next phase called for the 3rd Panzer Corps to wheel westward along the south bank of the Bereka River—a maneuver less immediately dangerous than the northern thrust the Soviets had already overlooked. Kleist therefore proposed a cautious crossing of the Bereka to preserve the option of a northward drive should the enemy continue to ignore the westward shift. On May 19th the 14th Panzer Division seized a small bridgehead at Petrovskoye, narrowing the Izyum neck to just 24 kilometers and denying the Soviets one of their few usable Donets crossings.
Throughout May 19th, the German 8th Corps noted that Soviet attacks against its positions were growing steadily weaker and more disorganized. Luftwaffe reconnaissance flights reported large Soviet formations shifting southeastward, away from the 8th Corps. Acting on his own authority, Timoshenko finally ordered a full cessation of the offensive that evening. The German Sixth Army promptly reported: “The enemy’s offensive strength has cracked. The breakthrough to Kharkov is therewith prevented.” Timoshenko then redirected the 6th Army and Group Bobkin against Kleist’s forces and angrily demanded that Riabyshev destroy the Germans in his sector to free up units for the new crisis. Initial Soviet successes on May 20th were quickly erased by counterattacks from the two German panzer divisions. The newly arrived 88th Infantry Division captured portions of Murom, but the gain was not exploited because more promising opportunities beckoned elsewhere.
On May 19th, both Bock and Hitler recognized the dramatic shift in momentum and agreed to press on to the original goal of Operation Fridericus: a complete encirclement. Kleist was ordered to race northward to link up with the 6th Army near Balakliia, trapping every Soviet unit inside the salient. Bock instructed the panzers to attack at once following his conversation with Hitler. The next Donets crossing at Protopopivka was to be seized “under all circumstances and as soon as in any way possible.” It fell early on May 20th, though the 14th Panzer Division was left holding only a narrow 13-kilometer-deep by 2-kilometer-wide corridor.
The main body of the 3rd Panzer Corps, which had been pushing westward to crush the 57th Army as far west as possible, was forced to reverse course. German commanders harbored deep misgivings about the reliability of the Romanian divisions anchoring the western sector—misgivings heightened when one Romanian division commander abruptly took leave upon learning of the impending offensive. Consequently, the 3rd Panzer Corps executed a grueling night march to reinforce the vulnerable 14th Panzer bridgehead.
Simultaneously, Bock pressed the cautious Paulus to launch a southward attack with the 3rd and 23rd Panzer Divisions as the northern arm of Fridericus. Paulus, ever methodical, required personal insistence from Bock before committing his armor. That night Bock recorded in his diary with palpable relief: “…tonight, I have given orders aimed at completely sealing off the Izyum bulge. Now everything will turn out well after all!”
Over the following days the German panzers methodically ground forward through stubborn resistance. By May 23rd the 23rd and 16th Panzer Divisions linked up 16 kilometers west of Balakliia, establishing a 16-kilometer-wide barrier that severed the Soviet forces inside the salient from safety. The 6th and 57th Armies, together with Group Bobkin, were now fully encircled. All were critically short of fuel and ammunition after two weeks of nonstop combat. General Kostenko was rushed forward to assume overall command of the trapped Soviet troops in the Izyum pocket. The outcome was catastrophic. When Timoshenko attempted to explain the disaster to Stalin, he reportedly admitted that the speed of Kleist’s northward pivot had been “unexpected” and that the Southern Front’s collapse had rendered any organized response impossible. Stalin’s reaction, according to those present at Stavka, was one of icy fury. After a long, ominous silence following the encirclement report, he simply stated: “See to it that they break out. That is all.” The terse order concealed neither his rage nor any promise of mercy.
To the south, General Kurochkin abandoned his 17-day offensive aimed at crushing the Ramushevo corridor on May 20th. The operation had achieved little beyond inflicting heavy losses on the attacking Soviet divisions and causing temporary supply disruptions to the German 2nd Corps around Demyansk. The frontline stabilized along the Lovat River. After-action reports cited the failure on inexperience in reducing large encircled forces, a persistent underestimation of German defensive capabilities, and repeated misreading of enemy intentions. They also highlighted the chronic Soviet failure to fortify junctions between cooperating armies—a vulnerability the Germans had exploited since the opening days of the war.
With Soviet offensives in the north seemingly exhausted for the moment, the German 2nd Corps turned its attention to rebuilding its depleted ranks and stockpiles. It also focused on subduing the local civilian population and partisan bands, whose resistance had been inflamed by earlier Soviet paratrooper infiltrations. General Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt ordered the civilian population to harvest crops within the occupied salient for German use, while the 10th Corps pressed locals into forced labor to repair the Staraya Russa–Demyansk road and construct bunkers and shelters along the frontline.
At the same time, the 16th Army directed the laying of a narrow-gauge railway from Staraya Russa toward the Pola River to improve logistics. Soviet artillery dominance over the narrow Ramushevo Corridor prevented its extension all the way to Demyansk. Group Zorn retained responsibility for defending the corridor itself, now under the command of General Knobelsdorff. Engineers worked feverishly to fortify positions across the entire 16th Army front; in front of the 123rd Infantry Division alone, more than 22,000 mines and 400 rolls of barbed wire were emplaced to create an impregnable defensive belt. Behind the lines of Army Group Center, Operation Hannover—the planned reduction of Soviet partisan forces and encircled units in the rear areas—was postponed once again by heavy rains that once more turned the ground into thick, impassable mud. Despite persistent rain clouds still blanketing the region on May 23rd, General Heinrici ordered the offensive to commence on the 24th anyway, determined not to forfeit the element of surprise.
The delay had given the Abwehr time to attempt its own elaborate deception. Since late 1941 the German military intelligence service had been training turned Soviet prisoners of war as diversionist agents. Some 350 of these agents, organized as the Experimental Organization Center, were assigned to Army Group Center for Operation Hannover. They were infiltrated gradually into the operational area of General Belov’s cavalry corps with orders to assassinate Belov and his staff and sow confusion by issuing false orders and disinformation to Red Army units.
The plan backfired spectacularly. One of the agents deserted back to the Soviet side, providing Belov with precise advanced warning of the German offensive. This intelligence allowed the majority of the diversionists to be hunted down and eliminated. Belov later recalled that the deserter’s information was startlingly detailed—he could name German assembly points and even the approximate date of the attack. “It was,” Belov wrote, “as if the Germans had sent us their operational orders by courier.” By May 21st Belov was fully aware that the Germans were forming into two assault groups. While subordinate commander Kazankin saw to it that his own formation dug in along the designated line, he neglected to secure the critical Ugra River crossing or coordinate a joint defense plan with Belov.
This oversight occurred despite Kazankin’s forces having been officially subordinated to the newly created “Special Group of General Belov,” established by Zhukov on May 20th. The special group granted Belov unified command over his cavalry corps, airborne detachments, and all partisans operating in the region. A planned airlift to reinforce the grouping had also been organized, but poor staff work and organizational chaos hindered the effort despite sharp reprimands from Zhukov. Only 1,663 of the intended 9,000 reinforcements arrived, and only a tiny fraction of planned equipment deliveries materialized, leaving Belov’s forces critically understrength for the coming fight.
It was also during this week that the first of the Germans’ super-heavy artillery pieces began arriving in the vicinity of Sevastopol, although even after delivery many would require weeks before becoming fully operational. The colossal Dora railway gun, for example, would need six weeks and its 2,000-man crew to assemble after its scheduled arrival on May 26th. General Erich von Manstein, the meticulous commander overseeing the siege artillery preparations for 11th Army, approached the task with characteristic thoroughness. In his postwar memoirs Lost Victories he emphasized that the reduction of Sevastopol demanded “the most careful coordination of all arms,” adding that he harbored no illusions about the difficulty: “The fortress was one of the strongest in the world. Its garrison was brave and its commanders determined. We could not afford a single mistake in the sequence of the attack.” Eventually more than twenty different calibers of artillery would be concentrated before Sevastopol, creating minor logistical bottlenecks. The Dora arrived with a mere 48 rounds, while the three Karl-Gerät mortars brought only 122 shells between them. Much of the actual German firepower would come instead from more reliable Czech-manufactured pieces—sixteen 30.5 cm mortars and sixteen 14.9 cm Škoda howitzers—precisely because abundant stocks of ammunition were available for these weapons.
On May 19th the Sevastopol Defense Region received orders to complete its final defensive preparations in anticipation of an imminent German assault. Between January and May 1942, Soviet convoys had successfully delivered some 35,000 replacements while evacuating 9,000 wounded from Petrov’s Coastal Army. Petrov now commanded a force numbering between 106,000 and 188,000 men and women—106,000 representing combat-effective strength across eight full-strength divisions plus supporting brigades and regiments, while the higher figure included all rear-echelon and support personnel. The garrison possessed roughly 600 artillery pieces, though none matched the scale of the largest German siege guns. Thousands of civilians had already been evacuated from the city to reduce the burden on supplies. Meanwhile, the Crimean Front was officially disbanded, and the North Caucasus Theater was downgraded to Front status. It remained under Marshal Budenny, with explicit orders to safeguard Sevastopol at all costs and prevent any German or Romanian landing on the Taman Peninsula that might open a second front in the Caucasus.
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German panzers drive through weak Soviet defenses, supported by overwhelming Luftwaffe air power, while Soviet reserves are mishandled, poorly fortified, and too slow to arrive. Attempts to halt or redirect the offensive are tangled in command and political disputes, with later memoir conflicts over whether Stalin was warned in time. By late May, German forces seal the Izyum salient, encircling large Soviet formations including the 6th and 57th Armies and Group Bobkin. The trapped troops face catastrophic shortages and are ordered to break out.
