Where the Iron Crosses Grow

German intelligence estimates believed it was possible that the Soviets would attempt more amphibious landings on the Crimean coast when spring came, but concluded that the most dangerous threat was a breakout attack from their Sivash bridgehead, followed by an outflanking maneuver against the Perekop position. Although a German retreat to Ishun might have reduced this threat, Hitler refused to authorize any more withdrdawals in the Crimea. Instead, Jaenecke’s staff used the winter to begin work on a fallback position known as the Gneisenau Line, to protect the approaches to Sevastopol in case of a Soviet breakout from the Sivash, but this effort received little priority. By spring 1944, the Gneisenau Line consisted of seven company-size Stützpunkt, each armed with a few antitank guns and Romanian howitzers – at best, a delaying position.[26] Jaenecke and his chief of staff, Generalmajor Wolfdietrich Ritter von Xylander, also worked on a variety of evacuation schemes, renamed first Litzmann, then Rudderboot, then Gleiterboot, then Adler.[27] All these plans were designed to organize an emergency Dunkirk-style evacuation from the Crimea once an all-out Soviet offensive began in order to save as much of AOK 17 as possible, but they remained little more than staff studies since Hitler would not authorize an evacuation. Holding the Crimea was more important to him than the risk to AOK 17.

CHAPTER 9 German Defeat in the Crimea, 1944

“History shows that there are no invincible armies.”

Josef Stalin

Once spring weather arrived, the German goose in the Crimea was pretty well cooked. Tolbukhin and Eremenko had met with Stalin in Moscow during March to discuss the Crimea, and the basic plan of attack had been decided. Zakharov’s 2nd Guards Army would mount a strong deliberate offensive against Gruppe Konrad’s defenses at Perekop, while Kreizer’s 51st Army would stage a breakout attack from its Sivash bridgehead. Once the German front was broken, Vasil’ev’s 19th Tank Corps would exploit southward to Simferopol. Eremenko’s Coastal Army was intended merely to fix Allmendinger’s V Armeekorps at Kerch during the first phase of the Crimean Offensive and then exploit the situation as circumstances permitted.[1] Compared to previous Soviet offensives, the 1944 Crimean Offensive was very well planned and coordinated. Zakharov’s troops had spent the winter months training intensively on breach operations, and were well provided with wire cutters, sapper platoons, and plenty of support weapons. On the Perekop front, the 2nd Guards Army had been busy digging approach trenches, which narrowed the width of no man’s land from 700–1,000 yards to just 150–200 yards. From their trenches, the Germans watched apprehensively as the distance narrowed.

Gruppe Konrad had prepared a defense in depth, consisting of three lines across the Perekop Isthmus. Indeed, this was a luxury that the Germans rarely enjoyed on the Eastern Front, but here the narrowness of the isthmus allowed them to concentrate their forces. Sixt’s 50. Infanterie-Division deployed in a standard “two up, one back” style, with Grenadier-Regiments 121 and 122 still holding the eastern and western ends of the Tatar Ditch, and the town of Armyansk in the center turned into a fortified Stützpunkt. Further back, two batteries of StuG III assault guns from Major Gerhard Hoppe’s Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 279 waited in reserve. Sixt’s other regiment, Grenadier-Regiment 123, was positioned even further back, where it could either reinforce at Armyansk or act as a reserve for the defenses on the Sivash. Oberstleutnant Willy Marienfeld, the former schoolteacher who was awarded the Ritterkreuz for being one of the first German officers into Sevastopol in 1942, was commander of Grenadier-Regiment 123. Hauptmann Walter Salzmann, another veteran company commander and Ritterkreuz recipient from the 1942 campaign in the Crimea, commanded Füsilier-Bataillon 50. Sixt’s division might have been badly depleted from losses, but it still had very capable tactical leaders. The German front line consisted of a continuous row of trenches, surmounted by rows of barbed wire and antipersonnel mines – reminiscent of the last year of World War I. The second and third lines of defenses were built at Ishun, but manned only by Romanian troops. The Axis defenses on the Sivash front were broken into three distinct groups by the lake terrain: a western group (consisting of the Romanian 38th Infantry Regiment), a central group (the Romanian 23rd and 33rd Infantry Regiments, the German 336. Pionier Bataillon, and a battery of StuG III assault guns), and an eastern group (the Romanian 94th and 96th Infantry Regiments, supported by two StuG IIIs). In all these sectors, the terrain was flat and constricted by water, which favored the defense.