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The iberation of the Ukraine began with the Voronizh-Kharkiv offensive (January – March 1943). The Germans managed to reseiz Kharkov. And then fighting slowed as the two sides prepared for a huge battle over the Kursk salient. Following the monumental Red army victory at Kursk (July) the Soviets organized followp offensves. General Vatutin and Geeral Konev led the Soviet offensives. , The Steppe front troops liberated Kharkov (August 23). The cental step in liberating the Ukraine was to cross the great Dnieper wjich flows through the country. This was necessaey to liberate Kiev. The Germans tried to build strong defence line using the Dnieper. Here the Red Army had an ally. He refused to allow importnt formtions to retreat to strong defensive positions. Rather units were ordered to stand and fight and when they finally fell back were unable to estblish a strong line. The Red Army assaulted the weakened German forces grouping along the Dnieper (September-October 1943). A major offensive was fought over the Donbas (August – September 1943). This was followed by the Chernihiv-Poltava offensive (September). The Red Army entered Kiev (November 1943). The Korsun-Shevchenko offensive was fought (January- February 1944). The Soviets reached parts of Galacia (Spring 1944). The success of Bereznegovato-Cnigiryev operation in the south opened the way to Odessa whivh has so heroically resisted te Germans and Romanians at the onset of Brbarossa (March 1944). The 3rd Ukranian front under the command of General Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky forced a crossing of the Southern Bug and began the drive tward Nikolayev and Odessa. The Red Army etered Odessa (April 1944). Finally timed with Bagration in the north, the Lviv-Sandomyr offendive drove the Germans out of some of the last areas they occupied in the Ukraine (July - August 1944). The last Ukrainan populated area librated was the Carpathian region which had been part of Czechoslovakia before the War. This offensive was conducted (September - October 1944). Red Army troops entered Uzhhorod (October 28).
Marshall Zukov launched Operation Uranus destoying Axis allied armies north and south of Stalingrad andentrapping the German 6th Army in the city. Hitler's orders to the Sicth Army's commander and NAZI supporter, Gen. Paulis, were to stand and fight. This doomed the Sixth Army. Paulis surrendered some 90,000 Germans, but the overall lossess in and around Stalingrad were much larger in addirionto all the equipment nd arms of Germany's most formidavle military formation. The losses of men and material combined with the lossess in the previous Soviet Winter Offenive fundamentally changed the ballance of forces on the Eastern Front where the warwas being decided. Only German military professionalism, as opposed to Hitler's military incopetence, saved the Army Group South. As it wasit meant that Soviet forces in the south wre now substantially superior to the Germans. This meant that the Red Army was now able to launch the reconquest of the Ukraine--the Soviet bread basket.
Two important developments had occurred by the time that Staingrad fell which made possible a sucessful Soviet campaign into the Ukraine possible. First, a new, stronger more competent Red Army was emerging in the East. The Wehrmacht had been educating the Red Army for nearly 2 years in the principles of modern warfare. It was an enormously costly education entailing the deaths of mllions, but it was effective. And at the time of Stalingrad a new generation of tough, competent commanders was emerging, strongly motivted and with the professional skills to take the fight to the Germans. Second, the tools for the new commanders were arriving in huge quantities. Not only wre the factories movedeast during Barbarossa now fully on line and spewing out huge quantities of tanks, artillertry, planes, munitions, and other equipment, but American Lend Lease was now arriving in quantity. And an important part of Lend Lease was trucks. While trucks do not have the glamor of a T-34 tank, they were vital for the conduct mobile warfare. Tanls and tillery mightblast a whole in an ememy front line, unless infantry and supplies can be poured into that hole, a major success is not possible. This is what American Lend Lease trucks meant to the Red Army. Of course the Soviets had trucks of their own as did the Germans, but the quality and quantity of American trucks transformd the Red Army. German successes in 1941-42 were achieved by tactica and mobility against much larger Red army forces. As the American trucks reached the Red Army, not only did it have the advantage of larger numbers and more equipment, it began acquiring the m0bility that the Wehrmct could only dream of at the peak of its successes in the East. And given the flat open expandes of the Ukraine, this was the perfect target for the new, increasingly competent Red Army to engage the Germans.
The iberation of the Ukraine began with the Voronizh-Kharkov offensive (January – March 1943). The Germans managed to reseize Kharkov, but would not hold it for long. And then fighting slowed as the two sides prepared for a huge battle over the Kursk salient.
The Battle of Kursk has been described as the greatest land battle in human history. Other battles are better known, but like Stalingrad were spread overs weeks if not months. The Battle of Kursk ocuured on one single day--July 5, 1943. The defeat in North Africa was punishing, but it was on the Eastern Front against the Soviets that the great bulk of the Wehrmacht was deployed. The Germans after Stalingrad fell back, but began amassing their forces for a third summer offensive of the Russian campaign. The offensive this time was even more limited than in 1942. The target was a buldge in the Soviet line--the Kursk salient. The effort was code named Citidel. The fighting on the huge Eastern Front involved vast armies in some of the most savage fighting ever recorded and Kursk may well have been the most vicious fighting of the War. Hitler delayed the offensive until the Wehrmacht could be equipped with the new Panzer Mark IV tanks. The Mark IV could take on the Soviet T-34, but it was a mich more complicated tank. Not only could it not be produced in the numbers of T-34s, but it required much more intensive maintenance than the T-34. The Offensive was overseen by von Manstein. Guderian objected to the plan for the battle approved by Hitler. It was to be a set piece battle. Guderian argued that the battle plan deprived the Panzers from the mobility which was their greatest advantage. The Soviet defense was planned by Zukov. The delays in the Germany preparations gave the Soviets the time to lean of the German plans and to prepare both defenses and to reinforce the forces around Kursk. The result was the largest tank battle in history. Although D-Day was a year in the future, the estern Allies played a major role in the battle. Not only was American Lend Lease playing a major role in supplying Soviet armies, but the Allied strategic bombing campaign had forced the Luftwaffe to devote substantial resources to defend German cities. Thus Luftwaffe support for the German offensive was limited. Although not yet on the Continent, the Allied invasion of Soicily caused Hitler to pull our of the offensive two key SS armoured divisions (Das Reich and Toten Kompf). While quickly returned to the battle when the offensive bogged down, the loss of position and tactical advantage was considerable. At Kursk, the Wehrmacht suffered losses from which they never recovered. Red Army losses were much larger, but could be replaced. It was the Germans last important offensive on the Eastern Front. Without the Soviet defeat of the Wehrmacht, the Western Allies would have been hard pressed to contain the Germans or cross the Channel. A victorious Russian ally, however, meant that peace following the War would be far from ideal and leave the peoples of Eastern Europe locked into a new totalitarian dictatorship for a half a century.
Following the monumental Red army victory at Kursk (July) the Soviets organized followup offensves.
General Vatutin and General Konev led the Soviet offensives.
The Steppe front troops liberated Kharkov (August 23), this time permanently.
The cental step in liberating the Ukraine was to cross the great Dnieper wjich flows through the country. This was necessary to liberate Kiev. The Germans tried to build strong defence line using the Dnieper. Here the Red Army had an ally--German Führer Adolf Hitler. He considered himself a military genius. And using the same mindset that led to the Stalingrad disaster, he refused to allow Germn field commnders to stage timely retreats so the could organize strong defensive positions as Kesseling would do in Italy. Rather commanders were ordered to stand and fight and when they finally were forced to fall fell back, not only lost men and equipment but were unable to establish a strong line. A major offensive was fought over the Donbas (August – September 1943). The Red Army assaulted the weakened German forces grouping along the Dnieper (September-October 1943). The Dnipper barrier had been breached, opening up the Ukraine to Red army offenses..
The liberation of Kiev was followed by the Chernihiv-Poltava offensive (September). The Red Army entered Kiev (November 1943).
The Korsun-Shevchenko offensive was fought (January- February 1944). The Soviets reached parts of Galacia (Spring 1944).
The Red Army launched the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive on Chrustmas Eve (December 24, 1943). It was the first chronologically of the Soviet 1944 offensives--called Stalin's ten blows. It was designed to clear Axis forces from the western Ukraine. Stalin referred to it as the Liberation of the Right-Bank Ukraine. The Red army committed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, and the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts. It ended with the liberation of Odessa (April 17).
Odessa was a large port city located in the southwestern Uranine at the time close to the Romanian border. Early in Barbarossa Odessa had held out long after the German forces had moved east into the Ukraine becoming a Hero City (July 1941). The success of Bereznegovato-Cnigiryev operation opened the way to Odessa which had so heroically resisted the Germans and Romanians at the onset of Brbarossa. Konev's drive into Romania was stopped at Iaşi in northeaster Rimania/Moldova. His left wing swung to the south down the Dniester to join with Malinovsky’s 3rd Ukranian Front and the drive on Odessa. The 3rd Ukrainian Front entered the Romanian-administered Transnistria. This was a strip of land east of the Dnister River whichhas been seized from the Soviets and administered by the Romanians. Vasili Chuikov of Stalingrad fame commanding the Eight Guards Army spearheaded the attack. The Karl-Adolf Hollidt's Sixth Army held the line for 3 days, but then was forced to withdraw. The Red Army advanced 25 miles towards Novyi Buh, encircling the battered German 6th Army. Hitler typically ordered them to stand and fight, but Holidt pulled back to the Bug River, hoping to build a stable defenive line (March 11). From this position Hollidt broke out from the Soviet encirclement. Malinovsky iladvisely split his forces at Mykolaiv (Nikolaev). Thus Hollidt suceeded in improvising a defensive line on the Bug (March 21). Despite the tactical success against conidrable Soviet forces, Hitler was dispeased that he has disobeyed the stand and fight order and removed him. The new commnder was Maximilian de Angelis. The problem of course was not Hollidt, but Hitler. The Soviets continued their drive and the Germans did not have the forces needed to hold at the Bug. The Soviets also breached the Prut (March 25). The German position was no longer tenable. They began to withdraw from the Bug (March 28). Even so the Germans had mot yet withdrawm from Odessa which was being cut off by the succesful Soviet operations to the north which had reached the Romnian frontier. The 3rd Ukranian Front under the command of General Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky forced a crossing of the Southern Bug and began the drive tward Nikolayev and Odessa (March 25). Red Navy submarines and torpedo boats of the Black Sea Fleet disrupted German naval evacuation efforts. The Eighth Guards Army and Forty-Sixty Army attacked through a raging blizzard (April 2). In only 4 days they drove the weak forces in their path across the Dniester (April 6). This meant that Odessa was surrounded. Soviet troops broke into the northern quarters of Odessa (April 9). Attacks thriyhj the night assisted by partisans liberated Odessa in the morning (April 10). The Germans left in Odessa capitulated. The Soviet forces not only entered Odessa but Romania itself. The Third Ukrainian Front liberated Tiraspol (April 12). They advanced to the Dnestr River and captured a bridgehead on its west bank south of Bendery (April 14). This would play an important role in the subsequent invasion of Romania.
As the Red Army was liberating Odessa, other Soviet armies struck at the Crimean Peninsula. Hitler refused to withdraw German and allied Axis forces (Romanian) in a timely manner. This meant that when the Red Army's Fourth Ukranian Front reached the Perekop Isthmus, the AXis forces were trapped. Hitler had convinced himself that possessiomn of the Crimea was vital in maintaining Turkish neutrality. This was an absurd decesion given that without Army Group A (the German 17th Army and Romanian formations) now trapped in the Crimea, the Balkans could not be held withor without Turkey. The Red Army could have movedwest leaving the 7th Army cut off, but as a amphibious evacuation was possible, Stalim decided to retake the Crimea. The Red army attacked over the Perekop Isthmus (April 8) and quickly overpowered the Germans and Romanians who fell back to Sevastopol. The Germans surrendered (May 9). By this time, Hitler finally gave permission to evacuate. Some of the defenders did escape by boat, but most of the Germans and almost all of the Romanians were killed or captured. The loss of so many Romanians in addition to the losses at Stalingrad meant that the weakened Romanian Army with limited German support could not defend the country. The Romnians had no choice but to surrender to the Soviets (September 12).
Lviv-Sandomyr Offendive was timed with Bagration in the north. Bagration was a massive blow designed to destriy Army Group Center, the major German formation still intact. It drove into southern Poland ad the northwest Ukraine. The Red army attacked (July 13) while Bagration was underway. It was launched on the southern flank of Bagration.
The 1st Ukrainian Front advanced through Poland and past the Bug River. The Germans at first resisted fiercely, but the Red Army eventually broke through, taking Brody, Lvov, and Sandomierz. The Soviets refer toit as capturing the western Ukraine and crossing of the Vistula. hese were some of the last areas of the Ulraine held by the Germans. The offensive ended (August 29).
The last Ukrainan populated area librated was the Carpathian region which had been part of Czechoslovakia before the War. Stalin called it the crossing of the Carpathian mountains. The Siviets attcked (Septemer 28). It wa coordinated with efforrts to take Belgrade and Budapest. The Soviets y entered Uzhhorod (October 28).,
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