Destruction of Mobile Group Popov and the Massacre of Grischino

Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in Eastern Ukraine

Red Army soldier taken prisoner by Waffen-SS

On February 14 1943 the Soviets at Grischino were attacked by only Wiking's SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania, wich succeeded taking up defensive positions. Meanwhile the enemy tanks attemted to enter Gubin daily, but they were driven out again and again by the Finnish Freiwilligen-Bataillon der Waffen-SS. The fighting there was a fight for every building. On February 18 1943, Wiking attacked Krasno-Armaiskoje from the south with regiment Westland in the northeast and Nordland in the south, supported by the division's panzer battalion and a kampfgruppe from 7.Panzer-Division, it destroyed the remaining forces of the Soviet IV Guards Tank Corps there. At the same time, Germania and Nordland, which had moved quickly through Krasno-Armaiskoje, smached the Soviet 7th Ski Brigade, which was defending Grischino. The volunteers of the Nordland were eyewitnesses to a teerible sight. In the villages were numerous German soldiers, Organization Todt members and Wehrmacht Woman Auxiliaries who had fallen in the hands of Mobile Group Popov and had been mutilated and sexually assaulted in a barbaric fashion. The Wehrmacht Untersuchungsstelle (Wehrmacht criminal investigating authority), announced that among the victims were 406 soldiers of the Wehrmacht, 58 members of the Organisation Todt (including two Danish nationals), 89 Italian soldiers, 9 Romanian soldiers, 4 Hungarian soldiers, 15 German civil officials, 7 German civilian workers and 8 Ukrainian volunteers. On February 19 1943, Grischino was also in German hands. The majority of Mobile Group Popov, especially its tanks, had been destroyed there and at Krasno-Armaiskoje. Above and beyond that, the threat to the southern wing in this sector had been averted. The fighting for Grischino had been hard on both sides and cost SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Wiking heavy losses. Division Commander SS-Gruppenführer Felix Steiner expressed his praise to Wiking on March 4 1943: In these days, you have truly fought for and advanced the future of your homelands. It will one day thank you. Today, however, I want you to be satisfied with my thanks and unbridled recognition as well as your pride in your accomplishments. Credit: Peter Straßner: European Volunteers and Wikipedia inter alia. Top image: Soviet Red Army in Eastern Ukraine in early 1943. Public domain. Bottom image: Soviet soldier surrenders to Waffen-SS grenadiers, of which one is carrying a captured Russian PPSh-41. Commons: Bundesarchiv.