Password: Freiheit, Objective: Lysianka, February 16 1944 at 23:00 – 5.ϟϟ-Panzerdivision „Wiking“ and Battle in Korsun Cherkassy Pocket (I)

Wehrmacht troops on the Eastern Front

Trapped in the Korsun-Cherkassy pocket, a defensive position along the Dnieper river in Ukraine in January 1944, were 60,000 men, at approximately 55 percent of their authorized strength. Among the trapped German forces were the multinational 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking under command of SS-Gruppenführer Herbert Otto Gille

Whitewashed Panzerkampfwagen Tiger

 and the Belgian 5.SS-Freiwilligen-Sturmbrigade Wallonien under command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Léon Degrelle and 6,000 Russian auxiliaries. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin expected and was promised a second Stalingrad. The Soviets was already triumphantly proclaiming in their news broadcasts the destruction of the Therkassy pocket and with it, division Wiking. Yet very few 

Whitewashed Panzerkampfwagen Tiger

German soldiers and no Waffen-SS men in the cauldron had surrendered despite heavy Soviet propaganda inducements to do so. With great hardship, the front held. Wehrmacht General Wilhelm Stemmermanns answer would be in the form of continued, bitter resistance. Feldmarschall Erich von Manstein ordered III Panzerkorps to attempt 

Die Deutsche Wochenschau

to relieve the beleaguered forces. Led by the 1.SS-Panzer-Division Leibstandarte SS and the 16.Panzer-Division the attack soon encountered heavy resistance from four Soviet Tank Corps. After heavy fighting, the exhausted force reached the Gniloy Tikich stream and established a small bridgehead on the eastern bank. The III Panzerkorps could advance no further, Group Stemmermann would have to fight its way out. Credit: European Volunteers, The 5. SS-Panzer-Division Wiking and HELL'S GATE: The Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket January to February 1944. Top clip: under shellfire and pursued by Soviet tanks, the surrounded German troops, among whom were the Wiking, fought their way across the little river called the Gniloy Tikich to safety, although at the cost of 19,000 dead, captured or missing and all their equipment. Bottom clips: according to some accounts, a Leibstandarte SS Tiger fires its main gun into enemy position between Petrivka and Korsun during the break-out from the cauldron in February 1944. Some sources identifies this particular tank belonging to 13./SS-Panzer-Regiment 1 of Leibstandarte SS. This information has not been confirmed by the Stabswache de Euros. All footage from Die Deutsche Wochenschau. Fair use.