Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1943-1945: Red Steamroller

Nevertheless, by 10 January Maslennikov’s 9th and 44th Armies were beginning to get across the frozen Kuma River in force, because the German frontline was merely a string of strongpoints with gaps in between. Both Lobanov’s and Filippov’s tank groups were across the river, along with cavalry and a few infantry brigades, which threatened to collapse the thin German main line of resistance (HKL). The 13.Panzer-Division, which was in even worse shape than the 3.Panzer-Division, made a brief stand in front of Mineralnye Vody to delay the Soviet tanks, then fell back toward Armavir. Westhoven’s 3.Panzer-Division continued to fend off Lobanov’s tanks, fighting another action on 11 January, before also retiring westward. Von Kleist was now aware that the Soviet Southern Front was aiming to close his retreat route through Rostov and opted to fall back toward Armavir, but this was only a waypoint along the path of evacuating the entire Caucasus. Hitler only grudgingly gave approval of tactical withdrawals as long as von Kleist promised to move PzAOK 1 toward the Kuban to hold a bridgehead in Caucasus, but he still refused to accede to von Manstein’s and von Kleist’s requests to transfer any part of PzAOK 1 to assist Heeresgruppe Don in the defence of Rostov.

Once PzAOK 1 pulled back from the Kuma River, Maslennikov’s armour-cavalry pursuit forces lost contact with the retreating Germans again. The Soviet tank groups were not configured for pursuit operations since they lacked proper support units, which meant that the tankers were dependent upon refuelling from the 9th and 44th Armies, which lagged well to the rear. Only the Soviet cavalry corps, operating on the Kalmyk steppe, was able to maintain pressure on PzAOK 1’s left flank. Yet rather than pursuing Soviet tanks and cavalry, the real problem for the retreating Germans was the icy roads and insufficient fuel. Hundreds of trucks and prime movers that ran out of fuel were blown up during the retreat. By ruthless economizing, PzAOK 1 was able to keep some of its vehicles running by abandoning others. Many disabled tanks were towed by Sd. Kfz. 9 (FAMO) recovery vehicles.⁵ As SS-Wiking’s last tanks retreated to the bridge over the Don at Bataisk, they carried their frozen dead with them:

We followed the oil pipeline back to Bataisk. Our dead comrades, whom we could no longer bury, accompanied us to Rostov. In one of the tanks lay Ustuf. Buscher, behind Flugel, the commander of the 2. Kompanie. He was shot in his tank, killed immediately. After a short time he was frozen stiff and it was impossible to extract him from the tank. We had to break his arm before we could remove him, but we did not want to leave him behind.⁶

Von Kleist steadily fell back, occasionally sparring with pursuing Soviet tanks, but also pausing here and there to repair vehicles. On 22 January, Hitler finally agreed to allow part of PzAOK 1 to retreat to Rostov and two days later he changed this to the entire army. Instead, the 17.Armee would retreat into and hold the Kuban bridgehead; this decision, although belated, enabled PzAOK 1 to contribute to shoring up the crumbling German front in the Donbas region instead of becoming isolated in the Kuban. On the night of 7–8 February, the last tank from the 16.Infanterie-Division (mot.) crossed the pontoon bridge over the Don at Bataisk into Rostov; then German pioneers blew up the bridge. Von Kleist had successfully completed a difficult 610km-long winter withdrawal under extremely unfavourable conditions and saved over 150,000 of his troops to fight again another day. Although PzAOK 1 had only suffered 1,455 casualties in January 1943 (including 398 dead or missing), it had been gutted in material terms. The PzAOK 1 had abandoned something like 600 vehicles in the retreat and had fewer than 40 tanks left by the time it reached Rostov; thus von Kleist’s withdrawal was a moral victory for the Germans but a material victory for the Soviets.