In January 1944, the Soviet army on the eastern front began to gradually turn the tide of the war, defeating the once unstoppable German army, and its strategic initiative situation improved, at the beginning of 1944, the Soviet Union Ukrainian 1st Front occupied the large landing field west of Kiev, and the Ukrainian 2nd Front approached the Cherkasy landing field and occupied Kirovgrad, forming a coercive attack on the German forces in the Kanev salient between the two landing fields. In order to gain the right to move freely towards the South Bug River, the Soviets were determined to uproot this salient.
At the turn of winter and spring in Ukraine, the rain and snow were continuous, and the roads were muddy and muddy, which was not suitable for large forces to fight, but the Soviets chose to attack in the Cherkasy area at the lowest temperature of the year. The idea of the Soviet army made sense. For the German High Command at this time, holding on to the Eastern Front was the most important task, and in the face of the dangerous situation in Cherkasy, both the Army General Staff and the commander of Army Group South, Manstein, who was fighting on the southern flank, were aware of it. However, on the one hand, because Hitler insisted on holding the salient, and on the other hand, the Germans did not expect the Soviets to act during the thaw season, so the Germans hardly took defensive measures.
The Cherkasy salient is 130 km wide and covers an area of about 10,000 km². The Soviets assembled the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts here (the duel was 2:1), and the Soviets planned to encircle the Germans with the Ukrainian 1st Front from the north of the bottom of the salient and the 2nd Ukrainian Front from the south. Militarily speaking, the German army should abandon this salient and it would be more advantageous to draw the battle line. But Hitler did not allow that, believing that the salient had driven a wedge between the Soviet Union's 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, and even imagined using it as a springboard to launch a counterattack against the Soviet troops. Because of his stubbornness, Manstein could only order the Germans not to retreat and to hold the Cherkasy salient.
The 2nd Ukrainian Front was the first to attack, and with Hitler's indirect help, the Soviets were able to encircle the German army (about 60,000 men from the divisions of the 11th and 42nd armies, the 5th Waffen-SS "Viking" Panzer Division, and its commander was Major General Wilhelm-Stirmormann, commander of the 11th Army), in the Cherkasy salient. At 5 o'clock in the night of the siege, Hitler learned that the German army was besieged, he thought it was a great shame, he strictly ordered the German troops in Cherkasy to stand by and wait for reinforcements, and at the same time ordered Manstein to organize elite armored troops to break the siege and annihilate the Soviet troops besieging Cherkasy (Hitler's super sleepwalking), and the task of relieving the siege was entrusted to the 1st, 16th, and 17th Panzer Divisions under the 3rd Panzer Corps of Lieutenant General Hube and the Panzer Division of the Waffen-SS "Hitler Guard Banner".
By 10 February, all the besieged German troops had shrunk to a small area about 7 kilometers wide and 8 kilometers long under the pressure of the Soviet attack, and within the range of Soviet artillery. From February 3 to 15, the German troops who broke the siege continued to assault, but suffered heavy losses in front of the Soviet troops, who were superior in all aspects, and could not continue to advance, and could only break through with the besieged German army's own strength (in order to save the trapped compatriots, the "Hitler Guard" division shed the last 1 drop of blood. When the division was ordered to retreat and recuperate, there were only 3 tanks and 4 assault guns left in the division).
By this time, the generals of the German high command had understood that it was impossible for the German troops in Cherkasy to break through the Soviet encirclement, and the last field airfield in the encirclement fell on 14 February. Before the last German plane took off from the airfield, General Sturmolmann came to the plane and handed his diary to the pilot, "perhaps someone outside will be able to use it." On 15 February, Manstein, commander of Army Group South, reluctantly telegraphed to the besieged troops: The strength of the rescue force has been exhausted, and your troops can only break out of the encirclement on their own. In a frustrated mood, General Stmormann finally decided to time the breakthrough at 23 o'clock on the evening of the 16th, because the ground was frozen at that time, which was more conducive to marching, and at night visibility was extremely poor, which allowed the Germans to conceal their movements.
On February 16, there was a snowstorm and visibility was only 10-20 meters, and General Sturmolmann drew up his breakthrough plan in this way, the Germans were divided into two echelons, the first echelon consisted of the "Viking" Division, the 72nd Infantry Division and the B Army Group, whose task was to make a gap in the Soviet line, and then the second echelon of the 88th, 57th and 389th Divisions would follow, and they also took on the heavy duty of the rearguard. The German breakout direction was directed southwest to Rezouka to join up with the 1st Panzer Division. For the sake of secrecy, General Sturmolmann canceled his artillery preparations and announced that he would accompany the German rearguard: "Good luck to everyone, we'll see you outside the encirclement!" The German officers present saluted General Sturmolmann in awe, knowing what the general's decision meant.
What pained General Sturmoreman the most was that he had to order the 2000 seriously wounded to be left behind, who were to wait for the arrival of the Russians along with a handful of military doctors who volunteered to accompany them, and what their future would be? On the Eastern Front, neither the German nor Soviet armies had a tradition of treating each other's prisoners of war well (it was not uncommon for American guards to send German prisoners of war west with wooden sticks in prisoner of war camps). After a full meal, the German officers and men were nervously waiting, and it was obvious that the German soldiers were not affected by the Soviet army's persuasion to surrender offensive, and the German army was in high spirits when they thought that the long wait had passed, and they were about to fight to the death.
When the time came for the breakout, the armored vehicles of the "Viking" division began to roar, and in the ranks of the infantry, the company platoon commanders almost simultaneously issued the same order: "All bayonets!" "At 23:00 sharp, under the cover of night, the first group of German troops set out on the road to break through. Due to the unusually bad weather, the Germans passed through the Soviet lines almost unhindered, and before dawn on the 17th, the vanguard regiment of the B Army cluster reached the line of the 1st Panzer Division, along the way the regiment "did not fire a single shot, did not break a single person". Captain Stephen of the German 1st Panzer Division recalled the scene, "Our sentry saw someone approaching, and he shouted 'who', and he was answered with a cheer 'It's us, we are home', and then we found a whole regiment of German soldiers appearing in front of us", the scene at that time was very touching, after such a great ordeal, the two sides finally met, even those who had been through a hundred battles, the iron man could not help but cry!
But it was impossible to completely hide the sights and ears of such a large-scale breakout, and soon the Soviets discovered the actions of the Germans, and they immediately opened fire. The original direction of the German breakthrough was the direction of Rezouka in the southwest, because it was the closest to the German defense line, but it was naturally also the place where the Soviet troops deployed the most densely deployed, although due to the poor visibility, the Soviet troops could not leave their positions, but they poured a large amount of artillery fire into the originally marked area, so the German troops breaking through began to gradually deviate to the south, and in the darkness the German troops of different units gradually mixed together, and by dawn the German troops who broke through the encirclement were almost no longer in the company or above.
The German officers and soldiers struggled to advance on the almost knee-deep road, the Soviet artillery shells continued to explode in the ranks of the German troops, and more and more people fell, but the others walked forward firmly, after a night of marching in the cold field, the German army's physical exertion can be imagined, and now they have only one belief: even if they climb, they must climb back to their own defense line! General Konev placed five blocking lines in the direction of the German breakout, the first two were infantry, the third was artillery, and the fourth and fifth were tanks and cavalry, respectively. When the Germans broke through the first three lines of defense of the Soviet army, they encountered only weak resistance, and they all thought that they had escaped safely, and they all fired their guns into the sky and cheered. At about 6 a.m. on February 16, when the Germans had reached an open field, Soviet tanks and cavalry, which had been in ambush for a long time, appeared.
The T34 tanks rushed into the crowded German marching column in a dense formation, wantonly crushed the Germans who had already spread out of formation, knocked over the trucks, ran over the trailers and wagons, and crushed the German wounded and horses on the trucks under the tank tracks. The Soviet tanks tried not to open fire as much as possible, so as not to accidentally injure the tanks around them. The cavalry followed, chasing the fleeing German soldiers, wielding their swords and slashing and slashing. By this time, the battle could no longer be called a battle, it had turned into a one-sided slaughter. The German officers could only rely on their own initiative and casually gather soldiers from all around them, regardless of that unit, to resist the massacre of the Soviet troops.
At noon on the 17th, the Germans, who had survived Soviet artillery fire and tank tracks, came to the north bank of the Gniloitzic River. The 30-meter-wide river was the last obstacle on the way to the German breakout, and it was enough to get to safety. But there are no bridges over the river. At this time, Soviet shells began to explode on the river bank, and the German officers and soldiers had only one choice: swim over! Despite the fact that the temperature was minus 5 degrees, the Germans scrambled to jump into the river and began to swim towards the opposite bank.
Judging from the history of warfare in ancient and modern China and foreign countries, in this situation where there is a big river in front and chasing soldiers in the back, the army is very easy to disintegrate, but at this time the unique discipline of the Germans saved them, and many German officers spontaneously stood up to maintain order on the bank, and they loudly encouraged the soldiers to "hold on, cross the river and go home" Under their command, the German soldiers began to cross the river, some of them carried rudimentary life-saving tools, some helped each other, those who could swim helped those who could not swim, and the strong helped the weak, Even the wounded were mostly carried across the river by strong soldiers, but many sank to the bottom of the river due to exhaustion, and at least hundreds drowned. In the afternoon the Germans found a shallow section of the river downstream, from which many Germans crossed it more easily.
In the evening, the Soviets closed the encirclement for the last time, and to the comfort of the German top brass, the battle did not become the 2nd Stalingrad. Of the nearly 60,000 German officers and soldiers who were besieged, 40,000 escaped in the end, but the rest, including the commander of the 11th Army, Major General Sturmormann, were laid to rest on the snowy field. Of the total 14,000 men of the SS Panzer Division and the Walloon Brigade, 8,000 survived, and of the 2,000 of the Walloon Brigade, only 632 survived the battle.
The battle was over, and along the path of the German breakout, the corpses of the Germans were strewn all over the field. The commander of the Soviet army, General Konev, came to the battlefield and was shocked by the scene before him. In his post-war recollections, he recounted: "I have seen countless bloody scenes in the war, but I have rarely seen so many German corpses in such a small area." Among the many corpses, the Soviets found the body of General Sturmolmann, still holding a rifle in his hand, and his bravery won the respect of his opponents, and Konev personally ordered him to be buried with full military honor.
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