Where the Iron Crosses Grow

There was little truth in Jaenecke’s proclamation, and it is doubtful that he believed it himself. The Red Army lost a total of only 171 tanks during the period from April 7 to May 12, 1944, and overall Soviet losses in the Crimea had been relatively light, while Axis losses had been extremely heavy. Nor was Hitler going to send any more substantial reinforcements to the Crimea. The idea that the Soviets were diverting critical resources to liberate the Crimea was the converse of the fact that Hitler had consigned the AOK 17 to hold an untenable position in the Crimea, while the Wehrmacht was desperately short of troops all along the Eastern Front. The Soviets were in no hurry to liberate the Crimea before spring 1944 because they did not want AOK 17 evacuated and transferred to more critical parts of the Eastern Front; Soviet officers joking referred to the Crimea as “an ideal prison camp” where the inmates fed and guarded themselves. Rather than fighting for king and country, the German and Romanian troops in the Crimea were now fighting simply due to Hitler’s unwillingness to face military logic.

Once inside Sevastopol’s perimeter, the German and Romanian troops went underground in order to avoid enemy artillery and air attacks. Large stockpiles of food had accumulated in Sevastopol, and these were freely distributed to the troops in order to maintain morale. One German artillery officer from III./AR 117 stated that “we could not complain about our creature comforts. Chocolate, candy, canned food – as much as we would like. I drank a bottle of wine every evening in my cave.” Some senior German officers still enjoyed sleeping on clean sheets in Sevastopol, despite incessant Soviet bombing and artillery fire.

Gerhard Barkhorn was in Germany for an extended period, and did not return to the Crimea until late April 1944. In the interim, II./JG 52 continued its daily combat with the VVS and inflicted painful losses, despite being badly outnumbered. On the morning of April 17, General-Major Ivan P. Vilin, deputy commander of the 214th Assault Aviation Division (Shad), personally led a low-level raid by four Il-2s against the Chersonese airstrip, but ran into a gaggle of Bf-109 fighters. Three of the Il-2s were shot down, but Vilin managed to reach Soviet lines before crashing; he was rescued but died of his wounds.⁹

On April 16 Eremenko was transferred to the Baltic front and the Coastal Army, now under General-Lieutenant Kondrat S. Mel’nik, was subordinated to Tolbukhin’s 4th Ukrainian Front. Three days later, the Maritime Army launched a strong attack against the V Armeekorps positions around Balaklava while the 51st Army attacked the center of the Axis line, but neither made progress. Soviet artillery ammunition was still in short supply in the Crimea. On April 23 the Soviets attacked again, and the 2nd Guards Army seized ground on Mekenzievy Mountain, but the tanks of the 19th Tank Corps were stopped by dense minefields. After these attacks were repulsed, Jaenecke was given enough of a respite to reorganize his forces. Gruppe Konrad (XXXXIX Gebirgs-Korps), now consisting of the 50. and 336. Infanterie-Divisionen and the Romanian 1st and 2nd Mountain Divisions, was assigned to defend the northern sector of Sevastopol, including the area around Mekenzievy Mountain. Allmendinger’s V Armeekorps, consisting of the 73., 98., and 111. Infanterie-Divisionen and Romanian 3rd Mountain Division, were assigned to defend the southeast approaches. Only small detachments of the Romanian infantry and cavalry divisions were still left, and they were rolled into the three mountain divisions. All five of the German divisions were reduced to about 30 percent of their authorized strength in personnel and equipment and both corps had only limited artillery left. Hitler made a token gesture of trying to replenish AOK 17’s losses in men and equipment by sending 1,300 replacements, 15 antitank guns, and four howitzers, but this was a drop in the ocean.¹⁰