For Manstein's achievements in commanding operations in World War II, some people believe that his victory over the Kharkov counterattack can be regarded as the pinnacle of his command career. However, if we carefully analyze why the German high command reluctantly agreed to his counterattack plan, it cannot but make people wonder whether Manstein's judgment of the battlefield at that time was reasonable and correct. Although the Germans did win the war and retake Kharkov, a series of troublesome questions followed, the biggest question being whether the Kursk Tank Armageddon should be fought later. Moreover, Manstein's performance in this counterattack war was not as magical as the outside world evaluated, if it were not for Adolf's two personal visits to the front to supervise, Manstein would not necessarily have the determination and confidence to launch a counterattack, in other words, the Kharkov counterattack was not Manstein's own work. Let's take a look at how this counterattack took place.
01Why did the Germans have to reoccupy Kharkov, and how did Manstein lose Kharkov?
Regarding Manstein's performance in the Kharkiv counterattack, most World War II enthusiasts are willing to watch only the second half of the battle, but have little question about how Manstein lost the first half of Kharkov. In other words, if Adolf had not personally gone to the front on February 17, 1943, to order Manstein to reoccupy the city, would Manstein have made up his mind to take the initiative?
Realistically speaking, after Manstein commanded the Don Army Group in the winter storm rescue operation, his greatest achievement was to block the Soviet army's passage to cut off the two army groups A and B, that is, the Soviet army did not concentrate its forces to attack Rostov, otherwise Kleist's 1st Panzer Army would be blocked in the Caucasus and could not return.
Because Manstein focused on the confluence of the 4th Panzer Army and the First Panzer Army, he did not realize that the Soviets would attack Kharkov, the rear base of Army Group South, and Zabarore, where the headquarters was located, after the Battle of Stalingrad, with the strength of the 3 fronts. The bigger trouble was that the German panzer corps defending Kharkiv were two units that had not yet formed combat effectiveness, one was the newly formed Lantz Campaign Group, and the other was the SS Panzer Corps, which had not yet completed the formation of the army.
So, when Vatutin commanded the Southwestern Front to focus on the Donbass Plain, Manstein's mind was still on how to stop Vatutin from cutting off the German passage, and in the first two head-on confrontations with Vatutin, Manstein was not his opponent.
In this sense, the Germans lost Kharkov on February 16, and on February 17 Adolf personally flew to Manstein's headquarters and demanded that he quickly retake it, indicating that this counterattack was not a battle that Manstein had to fight, and it was somewhat reluctant to take credit for it. As for how the Germans lost Kharkov, Manstein also explained in his memoirs that General Hauser, commander of the SS Panzer Corps, voluntarily withdrew two panzer divisions in order to preserve his strength, and objectively speaking, Manstein could not have fought this counterattack without Hauser's disobedience.
02 Manstein won the Kharkov counterattack, was it as great as the outside world evaluated?
The details of the battle are not discussed, because the Germans did win the war, and they also recovered some of the positions on the southern front that had been lost in the Battle of Stalingrad, and in Manstein's words, the Soviets and Germans were again in a stalemate, contributing to a relatively stable battlefield pattern.
On the one hand, why did Manstein not take the opportunity of winning the battle to continue to pursue the Soviet army, and why did he let the Soviet army have more than 3 months to prepare for defense in the Kursk salient? On the other hand, what good would the recapture of The city of Kharkov do for the ensuing Kursk Tank Armageddon?
In fact, from the battlefield results and the ratio of battle losses given by both sides, the Soviet army did not have the outside world to evaluate how bad the loss was, nominally Manstein crushed 52 divisions of the Soviet army, in fact, these divisions were transferred from the Stalingrad battlefield, half of the units were empty shelves and had no real name, for the Soviet army, the loss of less than 100,000 people in the two fronts was not a major battle loss.
But judging from the situation of the German army, this battle was not easy for them to win. In addition to the tank losses of the 3 SS panzer divisions of more than 60%, the loss of troops involved in the battle was not small, in Manstein's words, the battle was that the Soviets did not use the tank units well to give the Germans an opportunity to take advantage of, the Germans only reoccupyed Kharkov, but did not have the strength to continue to pursue the Soviets to the east.
So, how much less is the generally believed German army to win more with less? Some say that the Germans won 1-8 against the Soviets, while others say that the Soviet tanks are many times that of the Germans. In fact, this exaggeration was not respectful of history, and when Manstein presented his counter-offensive plan to Adolf on 17 February, he used two methods of play, one was to ask the high command for the right to fight, to withdraw Army Group B to Army Group South, and at the same time to put the 1st Panzer Army under his command, which was the basis for his counterattack; the other was to propose a plan to first attack the Southwestern Front and then retake Kharkov, and the Voronezh Front, which had already occupied Kharkov, was relatively strong.
The reason why Adolf hesitated for half a day to agree to Manstein's use of this plan to counterattack was that the risk factor was too large, and Vatutin was one of the most capable generals in the Soviet army, and whether Manstein could win or not was unknown. In other words, what Adolf wanted was that Manstein would make up for it and seize Kharkov back, and Manstein would not have taken a huge risk in fighting this uncertain counteroffensive without receiving a replenished force.
In this sense, the Kharkov counterattack did not bring much loss to the Soviets, Manstein himself only rediscovered the losses from the mistakes in the first half, if the entire Kharkov counterattack before and after the analysis of the consequences, it will also be found that the German army's combat is still somewhat more than worth the loss, the most beneficial is Manstein himself, in addition to the success of his adventure plan to win praise, the already inferior armored tanks had to wait for replenishment, thus delaying the process of the fortress operation.
03 What did the Germans get to win the Kharkov counterattack?
Logically, it is a matter of great books that the German army won the battle, but Manstein only understated it in his memoirs, but the onlookers put on him a few top hats, believing that this was not Manstein's intention. As an example of winning more with less, the Kharkov counterattack can be regarded as a model of the Eastern Front operation, and in the design and planning of the campaign, Manstein's courage to challenge himself is indeed worthy of affirmation, but the true significance of the Kharkov counterattack is not influenced by external comments.
Judging from the outcome of the battle, Manstein probably did not consider the three consequences. One is that the Germans only fought a counterattack and did not cause significant losses to the Soviets in fact, in other words, the Kharkov counterattack was not about the Soviets. The second is to retake Kharkov, which is not a good thing for the German army, because more troops are needed to defend, and for the weaker the German army, the longer the front line, the more unfavorable to the German army. Third, it exposed the armored strength of the German army. It can be said that in the Kharkov counterattack, Manstein basically put all the armored troops that could be mobilized, although the losses of the Soviet army were far greater than those of the German army, but the Soviet army replenished quickly, and the German army could not take advantage of the protracted war and the war of attrition.
Through the above analysis, it can be seen that the Kharkov counterattack was a battle that won face and lost the lizi, and the reason why Adolf flew to the front line on March 11 to personally supervise the battle was that Manstein was afraid that Manstein would spell out his armored troops. In fact, the Decisive Battle of Kursk tanks, which unfolded three months later, proved once again that Manstein's plan of action for the fortress still could not change the fate of the German army's defeat.
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