Great Patriotic War Presentation

Part 3. Battle of Smolensk and the halted blitzkrieg (11.07. – 09.09.41)
3.1. Finland and Army “Norway”: slow but steadily

German Army “Norway” fought anything else but a blitzkrieg, which is understandable for a unit advancing through rough terrain on a secondary direction. Its advance on Murmansk was stopped in July by Soviet landings in the German rear (2 200 men landed in 3 waves). But on 8th of September Germans resumed their offensive.
Finnish advance in Central Karelia was also stopped by the end of summer. On 31st of July Finnish Southeastern Army began an offensive against Leningrad. On 4th of September it stopped in front of the Karelian (Siestroretsk) fortified district and thus blocked Leningrad’s northern land supply route.

3.3. Western direction: Battle of Smolensk

Already on 3rd of July, 2 and 3 PzG were under 4th Army’s command (Günther von Kluge) – this new unit was called 4th Tank Army. Kluge’s Army soon became orders to encircle and destroy Soviet armies on Dnieper-Dvina line. Wehrmacht command believed that this line was the last one, on which Soviets would provide organized resistance west of Moscow.
And at first, things looked very well for Germans. 3 PzG was divided in two – 57 MC led an impressive drive on Nevel, which forced well-defending Soviet 22 A to abandon Polotsk fortified district and connected AGs’ “North” and “Center” flanks; 39 MC saw an even bigger success, capturing Yartsevo in the rear of 19th, 20th and 16th Soviet armies on 16th of July, which together with Guderian’s drive on Yelnya and Smolensk, threatened them with an encirclement.
Speaking about Guderian, his troops failed to occupy Mogilёv, but successfully bypassed and encircled this town on 14th of July. The heroic defense of Mogilёv will however last until 26th of July. Further north 46 MC captured Yelnya, where it immediately began suffering from strong counterattacks and 47 MC reached Smolensk and tried to link up with Hoth’s PzG and close the pocket.
Nevertheless Soviet High Command tried to slow down the Germans with its own offensive actions. In one of those counterstrikes Soviet troops used legendary rocket artillery pieces BM-13 (“Katyushas”) for the first time in the history of warfare near Orsha on 14th of July. “Katyushas” inflicted heavy casualties and a morale blow on Germans, but it was not near Orsha where Soviets really succeeded in executing a counterstrike, but near Bobruisk. There F.I. Kuznetsov’s 21 A (main attack by 63 RC) crossed Dnieper and advanced several dozen kilometers until being stopped by 53 AC.
On 21st of July, 22 A on the northern flank of “Smolensk bulge” also achieved some success, retaking Velikie Luki and letting some of its encircled units escape the cauldron. But by that time the main focus was on another, bigger cauldron – Smolensk pocket with 300 000 Soviet soldiers in it. Germans didn’t achieve a tight encirclement – 16th, 19th and 20th armies held connection with other units through Soloviёvo and Ratchino crossings over Dnieper. Timoshenko formed so-called “operative groups”, which counterattacked German flanks from outside of the cauldron, so that some pressure on the encircled could be relieved and they could escape through the river crossings.
There were 5 operative groups in total (from north to south): Maslennikov’s, Khomenko’s, Kalinin’s, Rokossovskiy’s and Kachalov’s. All of them failed to reach Smolensk, but their actions, especially that of Rokossovskiy, whose group was the nearest to the encircled, helped many thousands of 16th, 20th and 19th Army’s soldiers escape the cauldron. At least, a majority of 16 A units managed to do so.
As a result of bloody battle around Smolensk, OKH issued directive № 34, which called for a halt in AG “Center’s” offensive. Its 4 PzA was disbanded – Army’s Tank Groups were now to be transferred to north and south and help capture Leningrad and Kiev. More than that, infantry was also ordered to go to defensive – drive on Moscow was postponed until the flanks are secured. Thus as you see Soviet active strategy proved to be pretty effective in halting the Germans.
Following this directive, Guderian turned south, encircled and destroyed Kachalov’s group and now moved in the SW Front’s rear to encircle it in cooperation with 6 A, 2 A and 1 PzG. 2 A began an offensive in Gomel direction on 12th of August. During this offensive it encircled the legendary 63 RC, which fought such a surprisingly effective counterstrike a month ago, that Germans called it “the Black Corps” after Braunschweiger volunteer Black Corps, which fought bravely against Napoleon and became a symbol for military heroism. Corps’ commander Petrovskiy refused to be carried out by a transport plane and died leading the breakthrough of his unit.
On 14th of August Soviet command formed Bryansk Front under command of general Yerёmenko with a task of defeating 2 PzG. However Guderian brushed its units aside and by begin of September already reached Desna river.
On the northern flank Germans encircled 22 A near Velikie Luki and then occupied Toropets and Ostashkov. But in the center 9th and 4th field armies were in a defensive position, fighting off strong Soviet assaults against Dukhovshchina, Yelnya, Roslavl and Novozybkov. The most successful of those began on 30th of August – it was an offensive of Zhukov’s Reserve Front (actually only 24 A and 43 A) on Yelnya salient. Zhukov concentrated 800 guns on a narrow front and attacked with good artillery support. His plan to encircle the defending 20 AC (70 000 men) failed, but Germans still suffered heavy losses and were drawn away from Yelnya. The operation became the first Soviet operative victory in this war, 4 of the 11 participating divisions became first Soviet Guards divisions.
Map: 
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3.5. Southern direction: hero-city of Odessa

In the middle of July 11 A pressed hard in the eastern direction to link up with Kleist’s tanks. But it soon found itself halted by “Stalin line” fortifications. Uman cauldron was closed without its help. Nevertheless, constant pressure on Soviet 9 A in Moldavia became so hard, that it decided to withdraw to the left bank of Dniester. Northern flank of this retreat was covered by 2nd cavalry corps’ (2 CC) counterattacks near Balta.
On 19th of July, Southern Front command organized Separate Coastal Army from 9th Army’s southernmost units. After 1 PzG eliminated Uman pocket and advanced south to cut the Southern Front in two, this army stayed in Odessa, unable to retreat east like 9 A and 18 A. On 8th of August, garrison commander of Odessa declared the city under siege. On 13th of August, 1 PzG and Hungarian Corps finally cut off its land connection with other Soviet-held territories.
Coastal Army (just 35 000 men) faced the whole Romanian 4 A (over 200 000 men). Odessa’s situation became even worse, when Romanians occupied Beliaevka on Dniester and thus blocked Odessa’s water supply from the river. Water was soon given to the population by card system (which set fixed amount of water per person).
Soviet Navy was superior on the Black Sea and could constantly supply and reinforce Odessa without any obstacles. This circumstance and general inferiority of Romanian troops allowed the city to resist very long under heavy enemy strikes.
Meanwhile 11 A and 1 PzG (transferred to Kremenchuk) continued to advance to Dnieper. On 2nd of September, 11 A captured a bridgehead in Kakhovka. Soviet 9 A immediately counterattacked, but couldn’t eliminate the bridgehead. A bit further north, in Zaporozhie, 274 RD managed to successfully counterattack and retake Khortiza island on Dnieper, which prevented Zaporozhie from being shelled and made an effective evacuation of its industry possible. But the main course of campaign was unfavorable to the USSR: on 9th of September, Germans began an offensive from Kakhovka.
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3.7. Conclusion

In the beginning of September, AG “North” slowed down on the outer defenses of Leningrad, AG “Center” completely stopped and went on a defensive east of Smolensk, AG “South” continued to advance fast, but now reached a solid front on Dnieper. The planned Kiev cauldron was the only thing which could revive German blitzkrieg, which raged through the whole Europe unstopped and became halted after the Battle of Smolensk.


In this battle Nazis tried to quickly encircle hundreds of thousands Soviets, just like in Western Belorussia. But Soviet counterattacks held the cauldron unclosed for two weeks, disturbing German blitzkrieg and obtaining time to use its strategic advantage in form of more effective mobilization of bigger (not by far, but still) manpower. Don’t understand it false, Battle of Smolensk was a major tactical defeat for USSR – it lost 7,5 times more men (750 000 : 100 000) and loads of territory, but in terms of strategy it was an important step in ruining Nazi plans.


As we know Soviet failure would definitely lead to the extinction of Soviet people and Germans already try to do it. They blocked Leningrad, threatening the city with starvation, if the siege won’t be lifted; they have already killed thousands of Lithuanian, Belorussian and Ukrainian Jews; they (or Ukrainian nationalists?) killed 45 Polish professors in Lvov; thousands of civilians were starved to death (mass expropriation of food was one of the main reasons for the aggression against USSR); POWs were kept in horrible conditions, all captured commissars were shot. Slavs and Jews, Soviet citizens, fought as hard as possible to avoid their total extermination.


And with help of their British allies they now might still achieve victory despite the catastrophic beginning, though it’ll be a long and bloody way…

impressive!
check my leyte gulf lecture pls

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