Waring, Simon Defeat at the Dnepr

The XLVIII. Panzerkorps’ Counterattack at Kiev, November 1943

By the end of 1943, the German army was in a desperate situation on the Eastern Front. Its southern army group had been pushed out of eastern Ukraine, and on 6 November 1943, Kiev one of the largest cities in the Soviet Union was recaptured by the increasingly powerful Red Army. To prevent the complete collapse of his army group's front line, Field Marshal von Manstein had no choice but to launch a counterattack to halt the Red Army's advance and recapture the Ukrainian capital. On 7 November, two tank divisions of the XLVIII Panzer Corps stormed the Red Army's positions southwest of Kiev and halted their advance. Five days later, two more tank divisions joined the counterattack, and the XLVIII Panzer Corps achieved numerous tactical victories as it advanced northeast. Under the command of General of the Panzer Troops Balck, the XLVIII Panzer Corps achieved further tactical successes after mid-November, sweeping aside the disorganised resistance of Soviet General Vatutin's 1st Ukrainian Front and recapturing important cities and logistics centres on the way to Kiev. However, German hopes of recapturing the city were dashed in late November when Watutin's armies finally succeeded in halting the German advance, inflicting heavy losses and forcing Balck to end the counterattack. In his post-war memoirs, General of Tank Forces Balck claimed that interference from higher commanders and bad weather had thwarted his efforts to recapture Kiev. His Soviet opponents claimed the opposite: a superior Red Army had defeated the XLVIII Panzer Corps, and claims of bad weather were merely self-serving justifications for the German failure. This first comprehensive account of this forgotten battle provides a definitive answer to these questions, corrects the historical record on many unknown, ambiguous and controversial details relating to the counterattack by the XLVIII Panzer Corps, and thus sheds light on the nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front in late 1943.