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Rostov-on-Don lies at the mouth of the Don River where it flows into the Sea of Azov, a part of the Black Sea. It was strategically placed and an important target for the NAZIs as the gateway to the Caucuses and the oil wealth that lay there. Rostov was a target of Barbarosa (1941). After taking Kiev (July 1941), the Germans drove deep into the Ukraine, approaching Rostov. The Germans reach the city (November 20-22, 1941). The Soviets, however, aunch a counter attack and retake the city (November 27). The massive Soviet Winter offensive before Moscow forces the Wehrmacht to retreat west. The Germans are badly damaged by the Soviet Winter offensive. They are only able to launch their Summer offensive in one sector of the front and Hitler chooses the south. Rostov becomes a target again. The Germans cut the railroad at Voronezh near the Don River (July 6). This cuts off Rostov from the rest of the Soviet Union July 9). After reaching the Don, the German offensive divides. The 6th Army, the most powerful force heads east toward Stalingrad. The smaller force moves toward Rostov and Caucasus oilfields. The Germans seized Boguchar and Millerovo in the Donetz (July 16, 1942). Panzers move to cut off Rostov from the east in a classic Blitzkrieg advance. The Germans take Rostov (July 23).
Rostov-on-Don lies at the mouth of the Don River where it flows into the Sea of Azov, a part of the Black Sea. It was strategically placed and an important target for the NAZIs as the gateway to the Caucuses and the oil wealth that lay there. Any German advance into the Caucauses must first secure Rostov.
Rostov was a target of Barbarosa, the massive NAZI invasion of the Soviet Union (June 1941). After taking Kiev (July 1941), the Germans drove deep into the eastern Ukraine, approaching Rostov. The Germans reach the city (November 20-22, 1941). The Soviets, however, launch a counter attack and retake the city (November 27). The massive Soviet Winter offensive before Moscow forces the Wehrmacht to retreat west.
The Germans were badly damaged by the Soviet Winter offensive. They are only able to launch their Summer offensive in one sector of the front and Hitler chooses the south. Rostov becomes a target again. The Germans cut the railroad at Voronezh near the Don River (July 6). This cuts off Rostov from the rest of the Soviet Union July 9). After reaching the Don, the German offensive divides. The 6th Army, the most powerful force heads east toward Stalingrad. The smaller force moves toward Rostov and Caucasus oilfields.
The Germans seized Boguchar and Millerovo in the Donetz (July 16, 1942). Panzers move to cut off Rostov from the east in a classic Blitzkrieg advance. The Germans take Rostov (July 23).
About 20,000 Jews lived in Rostow. Few fled the NAZI advanced. They were urbanized, unprepared for life hiding in the country. Many did not fear the NAZIs, having studied in German universities. Soviet war propaganbda did not focus on NAZI anti-semeitic campaigns and the killing oprations. (There is still resistance in Russia to identify victims as Jews.) German authorities ordered the city's Jews to gather at a designated site on the outskirts of the city, ostensibly for their own safety. The Germans rounded up the Jews and marched the men to a ravine just outside the city--Zmiyovskaya Balka, or the ravine of the snakes (August 11, 1942). There the NAZI killing squads shot them. We are not sure just who did the killing, Whermacht units or Einsatzgruppen. The women, children and elderly followed (August 12). The NAZIs gassed them in trucks and dumped their bodies in the same ravine. Communists functinaries and Red Army soldiers along with their families were also killed and buried there along with their families. The death toll came to 27,000 people. This was the largest massacre of innocent civilians to take place in Russia. (Larger killing operations were crried out in the Ukraine.) For some reason, little information is available about the Rostov killing. Most of Rostov's Jews who survived the War were serving with the Red Army.
After securing Roistov, the Germans move south toward the oilfields reaching the northern foothills of the Caucasus (August 9).
Zukov during October husbands his resources, only commiting the minimal amount of men to Stalingrad to prevent a German victory and to continue bleeding them. He begins assembling about 1 million men, artillery, and tanks north and south of Stalingrad. The Soviets struck in mid-November. This time Marshall Zukov had engineered a massive encircling operation, clear evidence that the Russians had learned the basics of modern mecganized warfare that the Germans had introduced. Zukov struck the weak Romanian armies north and south of the city. The offensive was launched on November 19 south of Stalingrad in a driving snow storm with a massive artillery barage, obliterating whole Romanian units. [Fest, p. 662.] Then Zukov on November 20 strikes northwest of Stalingrad into the Don Valley Ismas again obliterating whole Romanian units. German units had been committed to the battle in Stalingrad and the flanks had been protected only by the Romanians. The two wings of the Russian forced joined 3 days later, surrounding the 6th Army and units of the 4th Panzer Army in Stalingrad.
With defeat looming at Stalingrad, German commanders in Caucasus begin withdrawing northward through Rostov (January 2, 1943). The last elements of the 6th Army surrender at Stalingrad (February 2, 1943). Red Army spearheads drive toward Rostov, Kharkov, and Kursk. The Soviets retake Rostov (February 14). >
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