Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Unlike other isolated Axis armies, the forces in the Crimea did not suffer great privations, since food and fuel remained readily available. The troops of AOK 17 were never forced to eat their horses. There was no starvation among Axis troops in the Crimea, and a deliberate effort was made to ensure that food was brought in for local civilians. Special attention was made by AOK 17 to protect the pro-Axis Tatar population from unnecessary privations.²⁰ Local fishing craft were employed to supplement rations with coastal fishing, and even the Tatars were forced to contribute livestock and produce. Nevertheless, the Germans did take the best of the supplies for themselves, and tended to give less of everything to the Romanians. Naval convoys also brought in over 100 tons of S- and T-mines to fortify the northern entrances to the Crimea, as well as large shipments of the new Faustpatrone antitank rocket, which significantly increased the antitank firepower of even weak infantry units. Yet the greatest logistic challenge for AOK 17 in the Crimea was obtaining an adequate supply of artillery ammunition. Due to the diversity of German and Romanian weapons, as well as flak guns, coastal artillery, and captured pieces, the artillery supply was nothing like the lavish standards of 1942. At best, quartermasters were able to prioritize a few ammunition types, like 10.5cm rounds for the German l.FH 18 howitzer, but even this mainstay of the German division-level artillery received a gross total of only 1,500 tons of ammunition per month.²¹

The morale of the 65,000 Romanian troops in the Crimea was deteriorating for a number of reasons, of which isolation was only one. It was increasingly clear that Germany was losing the war and that the Red Army would soon reach the Romanian border. Antonescu was quietly sending out peace feelers to the Western Allies, and he did not allow any replacements to go to the Romanian forces in the Crimea. By January 1944 most of the Romanian units in the Crimea were seriously understrength and their vehicles non-operational. For example, the 10th Infantry Division was reduced to 30 percent of authorized strength, with just 4,989 troops. Jaenecke attached some of the better Romanian mountain battalions directly to German divisions and attached low-quality German battalions to reinforce Romanian divisions. Anxious to keep the Romanians in the Crimea from lapsing into apathetic non-involvement in the war, Jaenecke put the Romanian Mountain Corps in charge of suppressing the Crimean partisans during the winter of 1943/44.

Once the Red Army reached the entrances to the Crimea, the partisan forces there became increasingly aggressive in attacking Axis lines of communication. Ambushes by groups of 30–100 partisans on the road from Simferopol to Feodosiya and near Yalta inflicted painful losses on Axis rear-area units, which threatened AOK 17’s supply lines. In late December 1943, six Romanian mountain battalions, with limited German support, began a week-long search-and-destroy mission in the rough terrain east of Simferopol. Apparently, the partisans were taken by surprise and had unwisely concentrated their forces in brigade-size base camps, which were identified and destroyed one at a time. The 4th Partisan Brigade had an 800-person camp identified near Sudak. The operation was a major success, inflicting over 3,700 casualties on the partisans, at a cost of 232 Romanian casualties. However, when the Romanians attempted to replicate this success by attacking three partisan brigade areas southwest of Simferopol in mid-January, the results were less promising: 651 casualties were inflicted on the partisans against 88 Romanian casualties. A final anti-partisan operation conducted in early February was a disaster, with the partisans evading the Axis dragnet and inflicting significant losses on the German-Romanian units involved. Altogether, the Romanian-led anti-partisan operations in early 1944 neutralized about half of the Soviet partisan forces in the Crimea and temporarily reduced attacks against AOK 17’s lines of communications. However, the partisans also managed to tie down the bulk of the three best Romanian divisions in rear-area security duties, which was a win for the Red Army.