August - September 1941
Operation Barbarossa
The Germans had celebrated Operation Barbarossa’s exceptional start, but were now also worried. Indeed, to support their feat, they had called upon all of what the Luftwaffe had to give in order to completely annihilate the Red Air Force. The problem was that these air units were now needed elsewhere. The British front needed to be reinforced, the Greek front had to be maintained so as to not let the Allies take the upper hand, and, most of all, the Reich needed to be protected!
In the end, the Germans would need to slow down their air campaign, and choose a front where these air assets would be less needed. In the end, with the fall of Smolensk and the pressing need to take Kiev and rush to Leningrad, it was chosen to leave Army Group Center with a smaller air cover, with the expectation that the Soviets were too spent to effectively counter-attack. A decision that would later prove fatal.
In the north, Rommel and Von Manstein were closing in on Leningrad. With the fall of Novgorod at the end of July, efforts were made to try and take Luga, where the Soviets were keeping the link with Northern Estonia, which had until then stood against the tide of the German Panzers. However, there, in marshy and swampy terrain, the Soviets stood firm. At Luga, the Soviet forces managed to hold Manstein’s forces in check for three days before having to retreat, their line having thinned too much, and Rommel having managed to drive his Panzers from Novgorod towards Chudovo, threatening encirclement.
At the same time, the German 18th Army continued forwards, taking Narva on August 7th, thus closing the door to any possible relief of Tallinn. The city itself quickly came under siege by Von Kuchler’s forces, who collaborated heavily with the Estonians who gleefully gave away much of the Soviet positions [1]. The Soviet high command, wishing to preserve troops, gave the order to evacuate the city to bolster Leningrad’s defences. From August 15th to 18th, thousands of troops would be ferried out of the city, though at high cost. Mines claimed just under a hundred ships of all types, which sank in the shallow waters of the Baltic: a total catastrophe for the Soviets which would be repeated at Hanko just two months later. Estonia had fallen to the Germans, and the Estonian flag briefly flew on top of the Tallinn fortress, before being promptly replaced by the Swastika. For Estonia, only the Western Estonian islands remained, which would be cleared during the months of September and October from the Soviet forces which still occupied the area.
Towards the west, Rommel’s advance had proven faster than even the Soviets expected. Combined with Manstein’s Panzers breaching the line at Kinguissepp, the Soviets found themselves in a race against time to get to Leningrad. Overall, because of their already thin positions, the Soviet Army did not lose many men in the Luga pocket, which was only meant to delay the Germans. In the meantime, to try and break out units, a counter-offensive was launched towards Lake Ilmen and Novgorod, but failed. Though, in this defeat, it tied down units which would otherwise have been needed to possibly breach the line at Leningrad, though this is unlikely.
Manstein and Rommel’s forces met at Gachina on August 25th, their eyes now firmly set on Leningrad. With the Finns coming in from the north, it was now only a matter of time before the city would be encircled. The Germans thus continued their offensive at the beginning of September, striking along the Volkhov river. Mga fell on August 29th, thus severing Leningrad from the rest of the Soviet Union by rail, with the first German forces reaching Chlisselburg on the banks of Lake Ladoga just a day later. Leningrad was encircled.
The Germans did not stop there. Thinking they could press their advantage, the first divisions started to move into the city, assaulting the Pulkovo heights on September 5th and pushing the Soviets down towards the city. However, while both Manstein and Rommel wished to assault the city, it was not to be. With waning air support due to the events in the south, and worsening logistics, the Germans had to stop their advance there. Hitler, for his part, announced that he would wish to starve out the city, instead of storming it. Rommel was disappointed, and went to ask for the Fuhrer’s permission to take it with the forces at his disposal. It reportedly took an hour of backs and forth between the two men, but Hitler finally relented. However, Rommel would have a reduced number of divisions since Hitler had set his eyes on Moscow, and would need to wait for several things to launch his assault: the closing of the Oranienburg pocket, and the clearing of the left bank of the Volkhov. Still, Rommel expected that by December, he could finally assault the city. For the general the objective was now clear: he would have his photograph on board his tank with the Nazi flag behind him, raised on the Winter Palace! After all, he already had his picture taken with the same flag on the Catherine Palace in Pushkin… [2]
At the same time, to the south, the Soviets were preparing for their great battle against the Germans in Kiev. Kirponos had managed to hold Korosten out of reach, protecting the northern flank, but Guderian was slowly sending forces southwards from Smolensk to outmaneuver the defenders. To the south, Von Rundstedt had also bypassed Kiev and was aiming for the Dniepr on every front: Nikolaev fell on August 18th and Kherson on August 23rd. However, no bridgeheads were taken: the Soviets had managed to withdraw and properly dig in, annoying the German high command.
Though, with a weakened position, the Germans certainly tried. At Zaporozhye, they were repulsed, but at Dnipropetrovsk, the 13th Panzer Division managed to capture one bridge and secure the city, on September 2nd. The Soviets furiously counter-attacked this isolated position, which, supported by the Luftwaffe, managed to hold at the cost of staggering losses. Though this concentration of means also allowed the SS of the
Viking division to secure another bridgehead, at Cherkasy, three days later. This bridgehead would also be counter-attacked by Soviet forces, but the damage had been done and the 9th Panzer had managed to slither through and expand it. It wasn’t all bad news for the Soviets, though, as they successfully repulsed bridgeheads at Kherson and Nikopol, stopping a bridehead from forming on the southern side of the Dniepr.
In the meantime, Army Group Center’s forces began their large encirclement cut from Smolensk down towards the south. Gomel fell on August 18th to Guderian’s Panzers, with the Soviets offering determined resistance all along the Panzers path. With hampered logistics and marshy ground to cover, the advance slowed down, much to the Germans’ annoyance, though the Ukrainian border was still reached by September. German forces took advantage of the weaker resistance in this area to establish bridgeheads over the Desna and aimed at the Dniepr.
Kirponos, in Kiev, saw the danger coming, but was powerless to stop it. After his heroic defence of Korosten and his perceived heroics in Kiev, the Soviet high command wished for him to hang on. And this meant keeping his best units facing the west, right where the Panzers were not striking [3]! Kirponos thus petitioned Budyonny, who in turn pestered the Stavka to at least give up Korosten to shorten the line. These efforts did pay off, likely coinciding with the German forces crossing the Dniepr and the very real possibility of a massive encirclement if nothing was done.
With the great encirclement looming, Soviet forces counter-attacked from Bryansk to blunt and even stop Guderian’s advance southwards towards Konotop. The Soviet air force gave a maximum effort on the day, flying no less than 4,000 sorties, thus putting a massive strain on Luftwaffe forces. Guderian’s advance stalled, but eventually gained back its momentum. With this setback, another counter-attack was ordered on September 3rd, with Soviet forces already tired. This counter-attack was disorganized and lacked proper air support, dooming it to failure, and with it, the fate of the Kiev pocket was thus sealed.
For Guderian, the counter-offensive still had taken wind out of his sails. He lacked forces to properly close the Kiev pocket, and spent a few days arguing to get the forces he wished in order to properly launch his offensive. Once this was done, he resumed his advance south and took Chernigov on September 10th. The fall of the city prompted the Soviets to evacuate all of their forces from the left bank of the Desna, which at this point did not amount to much regardless. This however put Kiev in an almost untenable position. Budyonny tried to ask for the Kiev front to be withdrawn: to no avail. Stalin ordered Kirponos to hold [4]. Budyonny himself was replaced with marshal Timoshenko, though this one had no real idea that the Bryansk forces were ghosts and would never be able to relieve the Kiev forces.
In the meantime, Guderian continued to push southwards, along with the Panzers that had established their bridgeheads to the south. The objective was the town of Lubny, which was quickly under siege on September 12th. Only the determined Soviet resistance stopped the two massive German pincers from closing, time during which the Soviet commanders bickered about what to do [5]. On September 15th, Timoshenko begged Shaposhnikov to withdraw the Kiev forces. The next day, the Germans closed the encirclement, trapping almost 700,000 men.
Stalin for his part was unimpressed. He categorically refused Timoshenko, then Shaposhnikov and Vasilyevsky’s pleas to withdraw Kirponos’ forces while the German lines were still thin. The Stavka had to persuade Stalin for these forces to withdraw to better positions, and finally the order to abandon Kiev was given. Kirponos did not wait for the orders to come in to break out, but, panicked, the Soviet forces lacked coordination. This did not mean that they did not experience some amount of success. In several occasions, Soviet forces managed to break out and even encircle German forces themselves!
But the German war machine had started to crush the Kiev pocket. Slowly, individual units were encircled and picked off one by one. Noting that order was collapsing, Kirponos personally took command of a wide group. Along with generals Vlasov, Bagramian and Kuznetsov, he organized a massive breakout attempt on German forces where he thought them to be weak: at Zhurivka. In the meantime, Timoshenko, Budyonny and Khrushchev had managed to escape by air. General Kostenko, of the 26th Army, was not as lucky and was killed during a Luftwaffe strike while retreating. On September 19th, German troops occupied Kiev, though sporadic fighting would still occur until the end of the month.
Kirponos and his group for their part had managed to assemble a force large enough for an organized breakout. Knowing that individual attempts had low chances of succeeding, he charged head first into the lines of the 95th Infantry Division, who were completely caught off-guard. Kirponos had struck at lines in which he knew no tanks were present, thus enabling his force to punch through, benefitting from the element of surprise and the lower bite of the Luftwaffe. Despite the Germans’ dogged resistance, Kirponos rushed to Pryluky fast enough for the Germans to be overwhelmed by the attempt. Many units were left behind, but on September 22nd, Vlasov’s troops were the first one to make contact with Soviet forces around Romny. Kirponos himself would escape with Bagramian and Kuznetsov on September 23rd. Guderian did manage to use his Panzers to cut off several units which failed to completely overwhelm the 95th, but the damage had been done: Kirponos had managed to escape along with 85,000 men towards friendly lines. And despite the 620,000 men dead, wounded or captured, the “escape of the generals” would leave a very sour taste in Guderian’s mouth.
Not to mention that at the same time, the Soviets had been met with much more success northwards! At Smolensk, Army Group Center forces were left alone against the Soviets, who were considered to be completely beaten. But on September 6th, Marshal Zhukov and his Reserve Front went on the offensive! Because of the lessened Luftwaffe presence, the goal of this offensive was simply to retake Smolensk from the enemy. Having seen the Panzers move south, Zhukov had waited to launch his offensive, and when it hit, the Germans were caught completely off-guard!
This was not one of the weak counter-offensives of the start of the war, this was a coordinated assault on the three infantry divisions guarding the Smolensk area. Soviet tanks rushed from the north at Demidov, with Soviet tanks overrunning the German positions at Potchinok, in a move reminiscent of the German army’s pincers at Uman or the Dvina! The shocked Germans held their ground, but for once, the Luftwaffe seemed to have more trouble than usual. Pounded by the bombs, the lines slowly melted down, until the impossible seemed to be drawn: Smolensk risked encirclement.
Hitler did not like this at all: Smolensk was supposed to be the first stepping stone to Moscow! But in reality, there is not much he could do. The 78th Infantry Division, in Smolensk, was being battered and if nothing was done, faced annihilation. In the meantime, while the Soviet advance would not go much further than this, it was clear that unless Guderian had some Panzers to send, Smolensk could not be held. Thus, after three days of dogged fighting, the 78th evacuated Smolensk towards the already cursed city of Katyn. On its left and right, the 137th and 292nd Infantry Divisions stopped any attempts by the Soviets to try and exploit their limited success, especially with the return of the bird with the Black Cross.
The damage had been done, though. On September 13th, the Red Flag flew over the ruins of Smolensk, sign that the Soviets were not done fighting and that they would keep attacking to preserve every inch of their territory. It almost made Stalin forget that, to the south, a great encirclement was looming in Ukraine.
But for Hitler, the loss of Smolensk was unacceptable. Operation Typhoon would soon begin, and the first city to fall would need to be Smolensk! Or, even better, if the Soviets that had so brazenly spat in Hitler’s face could be encircled, it would wipe the shame of this first setback! In December, Hitler thought, the Nazi flag would be flying on Red Square, and this would soon be forgotten.
In fact, the Germans would never even see the Volga.
[1] The NKVD massacring hundreds of prisoners before leaving probably had something to do with their enthusiastic collaboration.
[2] OTL Rommel’s ego was out of control, and he loved the attention. So, him setting himself the goal of being “the one who took Saint Petersburg” would become almost an obsession.
[3] Pretty much as OTL. Kirponos was a smart commander and knew that Guderian was coming: he just couldn’t take his best units off of the western side of the front.
[4] Stalin was scared that a withdrawal would be chaotic and result in massive pockets like Uman, and that in the chaos the Soviets would also leave a bridgehead for the Germans and get pressured from one more side in addition to the north and south.
[5] As OTL. The Soviets thought one moment that the situation was fine and that the officers on the ground were overreacting, and the next that a great disaster was going to happen.