The concise encyclopedia of world war II 2 volumes (greenwood encyclopedias of modern world wars) ( PDFDrive ) 1260

Ukraine, Second Battle of (November 1943–April 1944) Kirponos was killed during the fighting in September and several senior Soviet generals and Commissars were captured Stalin had three of the prisoner generals condemned to death in absentia Two of the men were arrested in 1945 after they were found among freed prisoners, and executed in 1950 on Stalin’s order The third man had actually been killed in action in 1941 Only that fact spared him execution It did not spare him undeserved dishonor and prolonged persecution of his family: the extended families of soldiers who surrendered in 1941 became liable to immediate arrest by the NKVD; most remained under suspicion and were denied jobs and benefits for decades Many krasnoarmeets returning home in 1945 after four years of sheer hell in some German POW camp were arrested on charges of desertion and treason Hundreds of thousands were shot by their own side; others were shipped directly to forced labor camps in the GULAG On the liberation of Ukraine, see references under Ukrainian campaign (1943–1944) UKRAINE, SECOND BATTLE OF (NOVEMBER 1943–APRIL 1944) The initial Soviet offensive on the Lower Dnieper River, the Battle of the Dnieper (1943), stalled after failure of a major airborne operation at Kanev and protracted inability to expand the bridgehead A hard pressed toehold on the far bank was insufficiently expanded or reinforced to permit a breakout Instead, General Nikolai Vatutin brilliantly and secretly moved 3rd Guards Tank Army and other armored and mobile forces of 1st Ukrainian Front northeast of Kiev After a screaming opening artillery barrage, he sent his armor to strike the German lines on November The advance overwhelmed the defenders and liberated Kiev three days later Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s Army Group South was stunned Vatutin built out his bridgehead southwest of the city, toward Zhitomir Then Manstein recovered and the Panzers counterattacked: Vatutin was driven back 45 miles The damage could have been worse: Adolf Hitler held back reserves in the great Dnieper bend 250 miles away, precious armor and men desperately much needed farther north But someone had to be blamed for the loss of the Soviet Union’s third great city, so Hitler sacked his outstanding Panzer commander, General Hermann Hoth Vatutin was similarly criticized by Joseph Stalin and the Stavka for excessive caution and failing to exploit the breakthrough, but not relieved Konev and Vatutin together followed up with the Zhitomir-Berdichev operation (1943–1944) In these related operations the Red Army brought to the fight over 2.4 million soldiers in 19 tank corps and 171 rifle divisions, each brimming with improved tanks, assault guns, and aircraft Konev pressed ahead in sole command of 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, nine armies in all General Rodion Y Malinovsky’s 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, comprising another seven armies, took Nikopol on February and overran Krivoi Rog on the 22nd Konev bounced the Bug, Dniester, and Pruth rivers in rapid succession by mid-March As they sped across southwestern Ukraine his men passed the steel bones of thousands of Soviet tanks lost in 1941 and 1942 Odessa fell on April 10 Then the main lines stabilized along the Dniester barrier Fighting was brutally hard and losses in men and machines on 1107