Places of settlement of ancient agricultural and pastoral tribes. Central Asian farmers and pastoralists
SUMMER-AUTUMN CAMPAIGN: JULY-DECEMBER 1943
In July-August 1943, 160,000 American and British soldiers landed in Sicily, defeated 60,000 Germans defending it and went directly to Southern Italy. At the same time, Soviet troops numbering 2.5 million people defeated a German group of over 1 million people near Kursk. The 6 million strong Red Army then launched a general offensive against 2.5 million Germans defending along a front of over 1,500 miles. This offensive continued to the line of the Dnieper River.
In October-November 1943, 11 Allied divisions drove back nine German divisions in Italy from the Volturno River to Cassino, while six fronts of the Red Army, comprising 37 armies - over 4 million soldiers in 300 divisions - attacked German defensive formations in the sector front of 770 miles in Belarus, near Kiev and in the lower reaches of the Dnieper, breaking through the German “Eastern Wall” in four places.
On December 1, 1943, the active US Army had 1.4 million, and there were 17 American divisions in Europe. The Red Army at this time numbered 6.2 million people and more than 500 divisions.
Context
Although Stalin's Western allies failed to open west coast Europe real second front, Hitler's Wehrmacht had to fight them in Sicily and repel an invasion of southern Italy, as well as take into account the threat to the defenses on the coast of France and the Balkans. In the summer and autumn of 1943, for the first time in the war, the Wehrmacht had to transfer troops from the Eastern Front to prevent threats looming in the West. And to make matters worse, the overthrow of Mussolini in August 1943 led to Italy's withdrawal from the Berlin-Rome axis.
In the Pacific region, American troops achieved naval supremacy and broke through the Japanese defensive perimeter. After the victory in the Battle of the Atlantic, the flow of military equipment and military supplies needed by the European allies from the United States became a real deluge, significantly exceeding the capabilities of the German defense industry.
And yet, at the end of that year, the German Eastern Front still remained the decisive theater of war. In view of the continued success of the Red Army's offensives, the German High Command sent its strategic reserves here again and again.
Until this time, operations on the Soviet-German front followed a clear pattern of changing strategic successes in accordance with the changing seasons: the Wehrmacht invariably won in the summer, the Red Army achieved success only in the winter. Although the Wehrmacht demonstrated its offensive power in the summer of 1941 and 1942 during Operations Barbarossa and Blau, climax In each of these offensives he stumbled, faced with unforeseen resistance from the Red Army, the difficulties of Russian weather, exhaustion of forces and deteriorating logistics.
Equally, in the winters of 1941/42 and 1942/43, the Red Army managed to stop both German offensives within touching distance of their objectives, launch their own effective counter-offensives, and then expand them into massive winter campaigns that each time brought German strategic defenses to the brink of collapse. However, in both cases, the German defense, although it bent, did not break. As a result, the Germans were able to prevent Stalin from achieving his strategic goals, taking advantage largely of the carelessness of the Soviet Headquarters itself, the skill and resilience of their own troops, and the spring thaw that impeded enemy actions.
By the summer of 1943, the experience of two years of war seemed to clearly demonstrate that summer “belonged” to the Wehrmacht, and winter to the Red Army. While this prediction of further stalemate irritated both sides, it was of greater concern to the Germans, who were waging war around the world in an ever-increasing number of continental and oceanic theaters of war. Germany was not only stuck in the vast expanses of Russia, but was also gradually losing the submarine war in the Atlantic, resisting the Allied air offensive on its own mother country, waging a land campaign in North Africa without much success, and strengthening the defense of the French and Norwegian coasts from the looming threat of a “second front.” .
Thus, by the summer of 1943, the military successes of the Wehrmacht, as well as the fate of Hitler's entire Reich, depended on achieving a decisive victory in the East - a victory that would exhaust the forces of the Red Army and force Stalin to negotiate a separate peace on any possible terms . Hitler decided to achieve this victory by launching his third major strategic offensive of the war - Operation Citadel against the Red Army troops concentrated on the so-called Kursk Bulge.
Stalin and General Headquarters also faced serious, but less daunting, challenges in the summer of 1943. Although the Red Army inflicted unprecedented defeats on the Axis forces last winter, the Wehrmacht still managed to stabilize the front. Therefore, the Headquarters could not defeat the Wehrmacht and expel it from Russian soil if the Red Army could not defeat it in the summer the same way it beat it in the winter.
The headquarters decided to begin its summer-autumn campaign with a deliberate defense on the Kursk Bulge - against which, as it assumed, the Wehrmacht would begin its offensive. Having repulsed this blow, the Headquarters planned to launch a series of its own counter-offensives - first near Kursk, and then on more distant flanks Kursk Bulge. As in the case of its offensive last February, the Headquarters intended to advance to the Dnieper River, and possibly direct the Red Army's efforts into Belarus and Ukraine.
The summer-autumn campaign of 1943 is divided into three distinct stages: the Battle of Kursk itself, the Red Army's offensive on the flanks of the Kursk Bulge followed by a push to the Dnieper, and the Red Army's struggle to capture bridgeheads beyond the Dnieper.
During the first stage, which began on July 5, the Central, Voronezh and Steppe Fronts of the Red Army disrupted Operation Citadel, repelling the offensive of the 9th German army Army Group Center, 4th Tank Army of Army Group South and Task Force Kempf on the flanks of the Kursk salient. On July 12, even before the end of the Citadel, the Western, Bryansk and Central Fronts launched Operation Kutuzov, attacking and defeating the second tank army of Army Group Center in the Oryol salient. About two weeks later - even before the fighting at Orel had subsided - the Voronezh and Steppe fronts launched Operation Rumyantsev, attacking and defeating the 4th Panzer Army and Task Force Kempf from Army Group South on the southern front of the Kursk Bulge and capturing Belgorod and Kharkov by August 23.
Away from the Kursk Bulge, the Kalinin and Western Fronts launched Operation Suvorov on August 7, pushing the 3rd Tank and 4th Armies of Army Group Center to the west. They liberated Spas-Demensk, Yelnya, Roslavl and by October 2 reached eastern border Belarus. To the south, on August 17, the Bryansk Front launched an offensive, defeating the 9th Army of Army Group Center and driving it out of Bryansk. Even further south, the Southwestern and Southern Fronts attacked and defeated Army Group South, driving its troops out of the Donbass and reaching the outskirts of Zaporozhye and Melitopol by September 22. On the southernmost flank, the North Caucasus Front drove German troops out of the Taman Peninsula.
As soon as the Red Army reached all offensive objectives in the Kursk, Oryol and Smolensk regions during the second stage of the summer campaigns, Headquarters gave the order to continue the offensive to the south and southwest along the Kursk-Kyiv and Kursk-Kremenchug axes all the way to the Dnieper. On August 26, the Central, Voronezh and Steppe Fronts launched many offensives known as common name Chernigov-Poltava operation. During it, by September 30, they pushed back the 2nd, 4th Tank and 8th armies of the South group to the Dnieper on a wide front from the area north of Kyiv and all the way to Dnepropetrovsk in the south. Soon after, Red Army troops captured small but critical bridgeheads across the Dnieper south of Gomel in eastern Belarus, near Chernobyl and Lyutezh north of Kiev, at Bukrin south of Kiev, and south of Kremenchug in central Ukraine.
In the second half of October, the Belorussian (formerly Central) and 1st Ukrainian (formerly Voronezh) fronts secured bridgeheads across the Dnieper south of Gomel, north and south of Kyiv. Meanwhile, the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian (formerly Steppe and Southwestern) fronts cleared the eastern bank of the Dnieper from German troops, took Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye and also captured bridgeheads on the southern bank of the river. At the same time, the 4th Ukrainian (formerly Southern) Front occupied Melitopol and the area between the Dnieper and the approaches to Crimea, drove German troops to a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper opposite Nikopol and isolated the German 17th Army in the Crimea.
The third stage of the campaign began in early November, when the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts attacked the Germans from their bridgeheads across the Dnieper. The 1st Ukrainian Front struck on November 3 from the Lyutezh bridgehead north of Kyiv, drove out the troops of the 4th Tank Army of Army Group South from Kyiv, Fastov and Zhitomir and captured a strategic bridgehead west of the Ukrainian capital. From November 13 to December 23, the front defended this bridgehead from the fierce German counterattacks organized by Manstein.
During the same period, the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts attacked the Germans across the Dnieper south of Kremenchug and near Dnepropetrovsk, but failed to achieve the final goal of the offensive - to occupy Krivoy Rog, the area of which was defended by the 8th and 1st Panzer Armies of the group armies "South". Over the next two months, these fronts managed to expand their bridgehead, primarily to the west, while the 4th Ukrainian Front blocked elements of the new German 6th Army at the Nikopol bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper.
Finally, at the very end of December 1943, the 1st Ukrainian Front, having received reinforcements, captured Zhitomir and launched an offensive towards Berdichev and Vinnitsa against the 4th Tank Army of Army Group South. This offensive continued the following year, 1944.
Most accounts of the war claim that the Stavka chose to give priority to the operations of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts in Ukraine throughout the autumn of 1943, rather than scattering the Red Army's forces over many offensives in many strategic directions, as it did during previous campaigns. These descriptions classify all Red Army operations in other directions, including the offensives near Nevel and Gomel in October, near Nevel and Rechitsa in November, and in the Gorodok area and west of Rechitsa in December, as secondary and auxiliary.
Thus, the traditional view of the summer-autumn campaign of 1943 includes the following military operations:
Soviet offensive in the Oryol direction (Operation Kutuzov) (from July 12 to August 18, 1943).
Soviet offensive on Belgorod and Kharkov (Operation Rumyantsev) (August 3-23, 1943). "
Soviet offensive in the Smolensk direction (Operation Suvorov) (from August 7 to October 2, 1943).
Soviet offensive on Chernigov and Poltava (Red Army access to the Dnieper) (from August 26 to September 30, 1943).
Soviet offensive on Zhitomir and Berdichev (from December 24, 1943 to January 14, 1944).
The Forgotten War
Existing descriptions The summer-autumn campaign of 1943 covers the Battle of Kursk and the crossing of the Dnieper in great detail, but still leaves a number of gaping gaps. Although the above-mentioned large-scale and famous battles obscure all others fighting During this period, the Red Army nevertheless carried out major operations in other sectors of the front that were of potentially enormous importance. Nevertheless, Soviet historians regularly and deliberately downplayed the significance of these operations or ignored them altogether, either for political or military reasons. Their German counterparts also did not pay serious attention to these operations, blinded by their stunning defeats in other sectors of the front.
Most of these forgotten battles again occurred when Stavka, at the end of successful offensive operations, tested the limits of the Red Army's operational capabilities. After the active fronts completed the initial strategic tasks assigned to them, the Headquarters routinely set new tasks for them with the goal of testing the strength or, if successful, defeating the new defensive formations of the Germans. In retrospect, most of these tasks are seen as overly ambitious and far beyond the capabilities of the fronts. However, to be fair to the Headquarters, we must admit: the excessive optimism demonstrated in the formulation of those new tasks was the result of a completely sound (although not obligatory) practice of trying to develop every strategic success to the maximum possible limit.
Contrary to the persistent assertions of post-war Soviet historians that Stalin and his Headquarters concentrated all their efforts in the southwestern direction (in Ukraine), in fact, the Soviet command again demanded that the Red Army conduct strategic offensives in many directions and on a wide front. Therefore, at each stage of the campaign, the Red Army launched major offensives in the western, southwestern and southern directions, as well as operations of lesser importance in the northwestern and Caucasian directions.
The "forgotten battles" or partially ignored operations of the summer-autumn campaign of 1943 include the following:
2nd Soviet offensive on Donbass in the direction of Izyum-Barvenkovo and on the Mius River (from July 17 to August 2, 1943).
1st Soviet offensive in Belarus on Vitebsk, Orsha, Gomel and Bobruisk (from October 3 to December 31, 1943).
1st Soviet offensive on Kyiv near Chernobyl, Gornostaipol, Lyutezh and Bukrin (October 1-24, 1943).
Soviet offensive in the direction of Krivoy Rog and Nikopol (Krivoy Rog, Alexandria, Znamenka, Apostolovo and Nikopol) (from November 14 to December 31, 1943.)
The first three of these "forgotten battles" were either components, or continuations of larger and well-known offensive operations of the Red Army. For example, the attack of the North Caucasus Front on Taman was a continuation of the much better known Krasnodar offensive operation, carried out from February 9 to May 24, 1943 with the aim of clearing the North Caucasus of German troops. Taking place for some time under the leadership of Zhukov, the offensive on Taman, which lasted from early April to August 1943, included a protracted series of unsuccessful attacks on the fortifications of the German Seventeenth Army around the village of Krymskaya and the village of Moldavanskoye, on which Hitler’s last bridgehead on the Taman Peninsula rested .
The 2nd offensive on Donbass took place in the context of the Battle of Kursk, when the Southwestern and Southern fronts jointly attacked defensive formations German group armies "South" on the Northern Donets and Mius rivers. Although the motives for this offensive remain unclear, it was probably carried out with the aim of collapsing the German defenses in the Donbass and diverting German attention and vital tank reserves from the Kursk area. Russian historians have studiously ignored these operations, preferring instead to detail versions of them carried out as early as August 1943. Finally, the 6th offensive of the Leningrad Front in mid-September on Sinyavino was brutal, bloody, but ultimately successful attempt overcome the defenses of Army Group North on the Sinyavin Heights - which the Soviets had not been able to take for two years. Although the attacking troops captured the heights, Russian historians have studiously ignored these high-cost battles, as have many of the previous attempts to capture the heights.
The most dramatic of the “forgotten battles” in this campaign began in early October, when the Kalinin (1st Baltic), Western, Bryansk and Central (Belarusian) fronts launched an offensive with the aim of expanding existing or capturing new bridgeheads across the Dnieper to the north and south of Kiev, and the Stepnoy (2nd Ukrainian), Southwestern (3rd Ukrainian) and Southern (4th Ukrainian) fronts were strenuously trying to dislodge German troops from the Dnieper bend from Kremenchug to Nikopol.
During the 1st offensive in Belarus, which began in early October and continued unabated until the end of the year, the Kalinin (1st Baltic), Western, Bryansk and Central (Belarusian) fronts sought to break through the defenses of Army Group Center. in eastern Belarus and take Nevel, Vitebsk, Orsha, Bobruisk and Minsk. In three months of heavy fighting that cost heavy losses, the Kalinin Front captured Nevel, driving a wedge between Army Groups North and Center, the Kalinin and Western Fronts reached the approaches to Vitebsk and Orsha, and the Central Front took Gomel and Rechitsa in southern Belarus. However, none of these fronts could advance further. Existing historical works describe individual fragments of this massive offensive - such as the Nevelsk and Gomel-Rechitsa operations, but studiously ignore the full scale and ambitious goals of this offensive.
The same historical works They also routinely ignore the fierce struggle of the Central and Voronezh (1st Ukrainian) fronts for the capture of strategic bridgeheads across the Dnieper north and south of Kyiv in October 1943. During three weeks of bloody but fruitless battles, the 38th, 60th, 40th, 3rd Guards Tank, 27th and 47th armies of the Voronezh Front, together with the 13th and 60th armies of the Central Front, and failed to overthrow the troops of the Fourth Panzer and Eighth Armies of Army Group South, which blocked the Red Army's bridgeheads in the areas of Chernobyl, Gornostaipol, Lyutezh and Velikiy Bukrin. IN in this case the spectacular victory of the Voronezh Front in November near Kiev erased these offensives from memory and history.
Finally, in November-December 1943, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts carried out an equally disappointing offensive towards Krivoy Rog and Nikopol in order to clear the lower Dnieper region of the forces of the 1st Tank and 17th Armies Army Group South. Although these three fronts repeatedly tried to reinvigorate their offensives and, in the course of their attacks, seriously pushed back the German defenses in several sectors, both Krivoy Rog and Nikopol remained in German hands until early 1944.
Analysis
The Red Army's important victory at Kursk and the subsequent advance west as far as the Dnieper consolidated the earlier triumph at Stalingrad and ended any German illusions about the outcome of the war. After Kursk, Germany could not even claim to retain the strategic initiative in the East; as evidence of this circumstance, the Red Army continued to advance until the very end of the war. If Stalingrad predetermined that Germany would lose the war, then Kursk proved to the whole world that the war would end with the complete destruction of the Third Reich. All that remains is to decide the question: how long will it take and what will be the price of victory.
Like the winter campaign of 1942-1943, the struggle on the Soviet-German front in the summer-autumn campaign was much more difficult than history describes. Since mid-summer 1943, almost every major victory The Red Army was preceded, accompanied or followed by some significant failure on the battlefield. Since these "forgotten battles" took place in the context of spectacular victories for the Red Army, it was relatively easy for the Russians to hide these battles and for the Germans to overlook them.
Just as Operation Uranus overshadowed the failure of Operation Mars in November 1942, in July 1943 the victory of the Red Army at Kursk overshadowed the defeat in the Donbass and the Taman Peninsula, and in the fall the November victory of the Red Army at Kiev hid its failure near Kiev in October and defeats at Krivoy Rog and Nikopol in November and December. Dramatic victories in the fall of 1943 on the Dnieper and during Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944 overshadowed the army's unsuccessful offensive against Army Group Center in Belarus in the fall of 1943 and later in the winter of 1944. In fact, this scheme will remain in effect throughout 1944 and until the end of the war in 1945.
Throughout the summer and autumn of 1943 and the first half of 1944, the Headquarters organized and carried out major offensives in almost all strategic directions, thereby putting enormous pressure on the Wehrmacht along the entire front. From the beginning of August until December 1943, all fronts of the Red Army from the Velikiye Luki region to the Black Sea attacked the enemy, and the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts united during the January 1944 offensive. Although these incessant attacks did not lead to the defeat and destruction of entire Axis armies, as they did at Stalingrad in late 1942 and early 1943, these “thousand cuts” seriously weakened the Wehrmacht troops, predetermining the catastrophic defeats that would befall them in 1944 .
During the summer-autumn campaign, the Red Army finally completed its long, harsh and costly training in combat. modern warfare, which she began in June 1941. It has now become a fully modern mobile fighting force. Although this training would continue into 1944 and 1945, at Kursk Soviet troops showed themselves capable of successfully competing with the most advanced army in Europe.
Politically, the summer-autumn campaign was also extremely important. Having demonstrated that the Soviet Union was quite capable of defeating Hitler's Germany, the Red Army's victory at Kursk had a profound political impact on other countries. Increasing importance Soviet Union in the Allied camp, it also gave him a key role in determining the future political order of post-war Europe - and undoubtedly hastened the Allied decision to open up Western Europe second front. It is no coincidence that soon after the end of the summer-autumn campaign, Stalin shifted the center of gravity of the Red Army's offensive operations to Ukraine, and after occupying this region, he tried to invade Romania and the Balkans in April-May 1944.
Historical debate
The German defeat at Kursk and the Red Army's advance to the Dnieper during the summer-autumn campaign of 1943 left behind a legacy of great historical controversy. The most controversial issues remain the wisdom of Hitler's decision to launch Operation Citadel, Stalin's strategy for the battle, and the extent to which Kursk represented a turning point in the war.
Time, rationality and possibilities of Hitler's Operation Citadel. Many historians doubt the wisdom of Hitler's decision to carry out Operation Citadel at all. Others argue that he should have launched an offensive immediately after Manstein's March counteroffensive. Still others criticize the decision to end the offensive before its full potential was exhausted.
Firstly, in retrospect it seems that the impressive strength of the field troops and strategic reserves of the Red Army in the summer of 1943, its powerful defense on the Kursk Bulge and predictability German offensive to Kursk in themselves guaranteed the Red Army victory at Kursk. However, in the context of Operations Barbarossa and Blau, Hitler and his generals had every reason to expect success at Kursk - since the summer months traditionally “belonged” to the Wehrmacht, and the Red Army had never previously been able to contain a coordinated enemy offensive even within operational limits before how it will reach strategic depth. This grim reality fully explains why Stalin and Stavka began the Battle of Kursk with a deliberate defense.
Secondly, it would have been very reckless on Hitler’s part to launch Operation Citadel in March or April 1943, since the Wehrmacht needed time to repair the damage caused to it during the winter offensive of the Red Army. The Germans had to complete the concentration of troops and equipment necessary to achieve victory during Operation Citadel. Moreover, the Soviet Headquarters already in March-April 1943 concentrated in Kursk and Voronezh regions impressive forces from its strategic reserves, including nine fresh armies. This group could well have stopped the renewed German offensive.
Third, Hitler had no choice but to end Operation Citadel on July 14th. By this time, the attacking Wehrmacht troops were greatly weakened by two weeks of intense fighting, and the vastly superior Red Army troops were already destroying the German defenses near Orel and on the Northern Donets and Mius rivers. These two offensives of the Red Army threatened to collapse the German defensive formations on the flanks of the Kursk Bulge, at the same time they pulled back large German forces. And, even worse for the Germans, at the very moment when Manstein’s tank wedges collided with the 5th Guards and 5th Guards Tank Armies of the Voronezh Front on the infamous battlefield of Prokhorovka, fresh 27- I and the 53rd Army and the 4th Guards Tank and 1st Mechanized Corps.
Stalin's "broad front" strategy. As with the winter campaign of 1942-1943, claims that Stalin sought to deliver the main blows on a narrow front are untrue. After the Battle of Kursk, and especially during the subsequent Red Army offensive towards the Dnieper, the Headquarters subjected the Wehrmacht defenses to merciless pressure along the entire front from Velikiye Luki to the Black Sea. By the time the campaign ended, nine fronts of the Red Army, numbering almost 6 million soldiers, were conducting active offensive operations.
However, during this campaign, the Headquarters often launched separate operations sequentially, one after another - with the goal of making the Germans worried and preventing the timely transfer of operational reserves from one sector of the front to another.
Kursk as a turning point. Although Battle of Stalingrad was the most significant turning point of the war, the Battle of Kursk was also such a point in several important respects. First, this battle provided the Wehrmacht with its last opportunity to achieve any strategic success. And secondly, the outcome of the battle finally proved that the war would end in the complete defeat of Germany. After Kursk, the victory of the Red Army became inevitable.
The victory at Stalingrad had enormous international significance.
It strengthened the people of many countries' belief in the inevitability of the defeat of the Hitler bloc.
Türkiye and Japan were forced to abandon their intentions to oppose the USSR. The anti-Hitler coalition strengthened and the role of the Soviet Union as the leading force in this coalition increased.
Simultaneously with the completion of the defeat of the Nazi troops at Stalingrad, Velikolukskaya (November 24, 1942 - January 20, 1943) and Rzhevsko-Sychevskaya (November 25 - December 20, 1942) offensive operations were carried out, which pinned down a large enemy group and made it difficult to transfer from no reserves to the south.
In January-February 1943 of the year The troops of the Southwestern and Southern Fronts (commander Colonel General A.I. Eremenko, from February 2 - Colonel General R.Ya. Malinovsky) cleared the large bend of the Don from the enemy and captured Voroshilovgrad, Kramatorsk, Rostov. At the same time, the troops of the Transcaucasian and North Caucasian fronts (commanded by Army General I.V. Tyulenev and Lieutenant General I.I. Maslennikov) defeated the fascist German group in the Nalchik-Stavropol and Krasnodar operations, liberating most North Caucasus and advanced with battles 500-600 kilometers.
In January 1943 of the year The troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts (commanded by Lieutenant General L.A. Govorov and Army General K.A. Meretskov) defeated the enemy south of Lake Ladoga, broke the blockade of Leningrad and restored the land connection of the hero city with the rest of the country. The actions of the fronts and fleet in breaking the blockade were coordinated by Marshal of the Soviet Union K.E. Voroshilov and Army General G.K. Zhukov.
The troops of the North-Western Front (commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko) in February-March defeated the enemy’s Demyansk group, and the troops of Kalininsky and Western fronts(commanders Colonel General M.A. Purkaev and Colonel General V.D. Sokolovsky) March 2 - April 1 - Rzhev-Vyazma grouping.
In January-February troops of the Voronezh and Bryansk fronts (commanded by Lieutenant General F.I. Golikov and Lieutenant General M.A. Reiter) completely defeated the Ostrogzh-Rossoshan and Voronezh-Kastornensk groupings of German, Italian and Hungarian troops and, developing the offensive, liberated Kursk on February 8 , February 9 Belgorod and February 16 Kharkov.
The fascist German command, trying to delay the offensive Soviet troops, concentrated in the areas of Poltava, Krasnograd and west of Stalino two tank and one field armies (over 30 divisions) and on February 19-22 launched a counter-offensive, as a result of which Soviet troops by March 26 were forced to leave Kharkov, Belgorod and retreat beyond the Northern Donets River.
March 8, 1943 On the approaches to Kharkov in the Sokolovo region, the first separate Czechoslovak battalion formed on the territory of the USSR under the command of Colonel L. Svoboda received a baptism of fire.
These operations ended the winter campaign of 1942-1943, in which the Red Army pushed the enemy back from the Volga and Terek 600-700 km and liberated North Caucasus(except for the Taman Peninsula), Voronezh, Stalingrad, Rostov, Kursk regions, a significant part of Donbass, Smolensk, Oryol and Kharkov regions.
From November 1942 to March 1943 Soviet troops defeated over 100 enemy divisions, the enemy lost about 1.7 million people, 24 thousand guns, over 3.5 thousand tanks, 4.3 thousand aircraft.
The active actions of Soviet troops on the main front of World War II made it possible for Anglo-American troops to successfully complete the offensive in North Africa, and then in the summer of 1943 to land in Sicily and launch an offensive in Southern Italy.
After the defeat in the winter campaign of 1942-1943. Fascist Germany and its allies faced a real threat of losing the war. Trying to change the course of events at any cost and make up for the losses suffered, the Nazis in the first half of 1943 carried out a total mobilization and significantly increased the output of military products. This enabled the enemy to increase his forces and assets on the Soviet-German front to 5,325 thousand people, 54,330 guns and mortars, 5,850 tanks and assault guns, and about 3,000 aircraft by the beginning of the summer campaign.
To prevent the collapse of the fascist bloc and regain the strategic initiative, the fascist German command decided to carry out a major military campaign in the summer of 1943. offensive operation“Citadel” in the area of the Kursk salient (Kursk Bulge), wedged into the location of fascist German troops.
The main blows were planned to be delivered in the area south of Orel by the forces of the Army Group "Center" and from the area north of Kharkov by the forces of the "South" Group in general direction to Kursk with the goal of encircling and destroying Soviet troops in this area, and then quickly crushing the defenses of Soviet troops on the southern wing.
The fascist German command hoped to secure victory in World War II at Kursk.
From the archives of ANGARSKY WORKER
“Twenty years have passed since the banner of Victory soared over defeated Berlin. 61 states took part in the Second World War, and fighting took place in 40 countries on three continents. The death toll was 50 million people. A worthy contribution to the cause Great Victory Our fellow Krasnoyarsk residents contributed over Nazi Germany. Tens of thousands fought on the war fronts, showing examples of courage and heroism. 130 were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Krasnoyarsk residents donated 47 kg of silver and 23 kg of gold to the defense fund, and collected almost a million warm clothes.”
In this newspaper we read about the exploits of our fellow countrymen. This is the order bearer G.S. Ivanov, a reserve senior lieutenant who participated in battles on the Leningrad and First Ukrainian fronts, took Poland and Berlin. Captain Dyakov talks about the battle with German Tiger tanks in the summer of 1943 in the area to the north Mamayev Kurgan. M. Ivanov - about the feat of Lieutenant Sovalev in Belarus. After the war, fellow soldiers met at the Udereysky military registration and enlistment office.
N. Novikov - about the battle of an artillery battery in June 1944 on the Leningrad Front, when he was a platoon commander. S. Bulatov - about crossing the Berezina River, for which he was awarded the order Red Star, and his comrades in arms - government awards. N. Gudoshnikov, senior lieutenant in the reserve, talks about the battles for the Dnieper, where he commanded a platoon.
