The trapped troops began to assemble into assault columns with the 72.Infantry Division and the 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking leading, moving ahead, silently and with bayonets fixed. Several hundred Soviet prisoners of war and Ukrainian civilians who feared reprisals by the Red Army also followed. Forming up in two columns they flocked into two parallel ravines in the surrounding countryside, and where the two ravines met, the troops emerged into open country and headed out towards Lysianka. The force broke through the first and soon thereafter the second Soviet defense line. General Wilhelm Stemmermann and his rear guard held fast and thus assured the success of the initial breakout. The Soviets ordered total annihilation of the escaping units using all available armor and artillery to attack and cut them into isolated groups and then destroy them piecemeal. Disaster struck at Lysianka as the Soviet troops, under General Konev, were waiting. The two blocking Soviet infantry divisions, 206th Rifle and 5th Guards Airborne, had already been smashed by the men of the 72nd and the Wiking. Soon after 06:00 the slaughter began. Soviet tanks drove into the German columns crushing hundreds under their tracks. Fleeing troops were confronted by units of Cossack cavalry and hands were lopped off of those who approached with their arms raised in surrender. There was no time to take prisoners in the frozen wastelands of the Korsun-Cherkassy pocket and the carnage continued till it was all over. In the short space of three hours, over 19,000 German soldiers lay dead or taken prisoner. Credit: European Volunteers, The 5. SS-Panzer-Division Wiking and HELL'S GATE: The Battle of the Cherkassy Pocket January to February 1944. Left image: unidentified SS-Panzergrenadiers of the Wiking in Korsun-Cherkassy in February 1944. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Right image: SS-Unterscharführer Gerhard Fischer, Zugführer of SS-Panzerjäger-Abteilung 5 of the Wiking, was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his actions at Cherkassy when Wiking's remaining panzers and assault guns established the escape corridor. Having succeeded in smashing a hole through the Soviets, they then turned round and headed back into the Pocket to cover the withdrawal. Not a single panzer made it back to German lines. Gerhard Fischer is born on November 12 1922 in Zwickau and is still alive in 2011. Private collection.
There were literally thousands of examples of German bravery in World War II. Many of them were done by individual soldiers, but some were collectively carried out by a large formation such as Herbert Gille’s Wiking Division.
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