Retribution: The Soviet Reconquest of Central Ukraine, 1943

Following on from On a Knife’s Edge, which describes the encirclement of the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad and the offensives and counter-offensives that followed through the winter of 1942-43. This title will commence at the end of the Battle of Kursk and will continue to the expulsion of all Axis forces from the Ukraine. Whilst the Battle of Kursk has attracted great attention over the years, the fighting that followed has largely been described in more general terms, and here the encirclement of German troops in the Cherkassy Pocket and to a lesser extent in the Kamanets-Podolsk and Brody Pockets, will be covered in detail. During the battles that continued almost unchecked from July 1943 to late 1944, the Wehrmacht was driven back from the line of the Mius and Donets first back to the Dnepr and then across the Bug and Dniester. German forces that had been left in the Kuban Peninsula south of Rostov in the vain hope of being used in a future attempt to retake the Caucasus were forced back into the Crimea, where they were isolated and ultimately destroyed. The casualties suffered by the German forces were immense, forcing the diversion of an increasing proportion of the diminishing strength of the Wehrmacht to the region; this in turn left almost no reserves elsewhere and thus greatly facilitated the devastating blow that fell upon the German Army Group Centre in the summer of 1944.