ϟϟ-Panzerkorps Complete the Retaking of Kharkov: March 11 – 15 1943

Panzerkampfwagen IV of SS-Panzerregiment 3 Totenkopf moving through Kharkov

At March 10 1943, SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser pulled together his SS-Panzerkorps into an attack formation. The Donets Campaign climaxed when his SS-Panzerkorps slammed into Ukrainian Kharkov on March 11 1943, the most populous Soviet city occupied by the Germans during World War II. The Waffen-SS battled through fanatical resistance in the concrete high-rise housing blocks that dominated the approaches to the city centre of Kharkov, and after four days of gritty street fighting, cleared the city. From Kharkov, the charismatic 28-year-old SS-Sturmbannführer Joachim Peiper hopped 80 Kilometers north to Belgorod, taking that city on March 18 1943. In the end, the Germans achieved the seemingly impossible: they re-established the German front in the south where it had been torn open by the debacle at Stalingrad. The achievement was almost surreal compared to the disastrous situation that had existed only a few weeks earlier. The German triumph was hard won, but fleeting. Credit: Historian Robert M. Citino. Image: a Panzer IV of SS-Panzer-Regiment 3 Totenkopf with tank-riding elements of Paul Hausser's SS-Panzerkorps entering Kharkov on or after March 11 1943. SS-Panzer Regiment 3 only fought on the Eastern Front and was one of the most capable. It supported Das Reich and covered the flanks and rear of the Leibstandarte SS during the counteroffensive and recapturing of Kharkov. The strain of the combat in the city streets is distinctly evident on the faces of the men in this picture. The frontline veteran SS-Oberscharführer and panzer commander peers straight ahead, his face tight with stress, searching for the next Soviet anti-tank gun or T-34 waiting in ambush, while the blank faced SS-Panzergrenadier behind his left shoulder appears completely exhausted. The tension of street fighting is clearly written on the visage of the man in the lower right corner. Credit: George Nipe. Photo by SS-Kriegsberichter Peter Adendorf, holder of the Panzer Assault Badge in Bronze as well as the Close Combat Clasp in Silver. The Totenkopf tank commander in picture has never been positively identified. Credit: Jakob Lagerweij. c. Bundesarchiv.

Third Battle of Kharkov: ϟϟ-Panzerkorps

Forward observers of SS-Pz.Gren.Div. Leibstandarte SS

SS-Uscharf. of SS-Pz.Gren.Div. Totenkopf

Left image: a Leibstandarte SS officer scanning the area for enemy activity during the retaking of Kharkov in 1943. He is using a Tripod Scherenfernrohr S.F.14/Z scissors telescope. An observer could position the tubular “ears” upright and parallel to each other or splayed out horizontally for greater depth perception. It was often seen employed in different roles and delivered as standard equipment in many German armoured fighting vehicles. The photo was taken by the Leibstandarte SS war correspondent Paul Augustin. He was promoted SS-Hauptscharführer on March 1 1943 and KIA in Ljubotin only eight days later, on March 9. U.S. NARA. Right image: a great portrait taken by SS-Kriegsberichter Hermann Grönert showing a cheerful-looking SS-Unterscharführer of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf during the battles of Kharkov in 1943. Note the skull insignia in his winter hat. None of the soldiers have been identified. U.S. NARA.

Third Battle of Kharkov: Street-to-street and house-to-house fighting

SS-Kampfgruppe Kunstmann

SS-Untersturmführer Hermann Dahlke

Several days of bitter street fighting ensued after the SS-Panzerkorps entered Kharkov on March 11 1943. The Corps were forced to fight their way into the city in indescribably fierce street-to-street and house-to-house combat against fanatical resistance. Soviet forces struggled desperately for several days to break out of the German trap before being cut to pieces. The merciless fighting in the city's apartment-complex death-traps is vividly described by American professor emeritus of history James J. Weingartner in Hitler's Guard. Left image: after the fierce battle with the Soviet Red Army the Waffen-SS panzers cautiously move down the streets of Kharkov, while mounted Panzergrenadiers hold their rifles at the ready, keeping a sharp watch for Soviet snipers. According to the author of The Battle of Kharkov Jean Restayn these battle hardened Panzergrenadiers belong to SS-Kampfgruppe Kunstmann of SS-Panzer-Regiment 3 of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf. SS-Sturmbannführer Eugen Kunstmann himself was killed after his command tank came under heavy antitank gunfire at Kursk on July 8 1943. Standing man with binoculars is SS-Sturmbannführer Georg Bochmann, battalion commander and future regimental commander of the Totenkopf Division's panzer regiment. Credit: Jiří Macháček. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Right image: SS-Untersturmführer Hermann Dahlke of the Leibstandarte SS was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on March 3 1943 after his platoon threw back the numerically superior enemy in hand-to-hand fighting and thus made a decisive contribution to the successful advance of the whole battle group during the battle of Kharkov. Hermann Dahlke was killed in action on July 5 1943 near Belgorod in the opening days of Operation Citadel. He rests on the Kriegsgräberstätte in Kharkiv. Photo: SS-KB Johan King. Credit: Ghermán Mihály. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

Third Battle of Kharkov:ϟϟ-Panzergrenadier-Division „Leibstandarte ϟϟ“

SS-Standartenführer Fritz Witt with fellow Leibstandarte officers

Battlefield portrait of SS-Unterscharführer Paul Klose

On March 14 1943, German radio interrupted its normal broadcasts with a fanfare from the Horst Wessel song, and announced that Waffen-SS troops had recaptured the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. The five-day battle to win control of the Soviet Union's fourth-largest city was the culmination of a two-month campaign by the Wehrmacht's Army Group South to turn back the advancing Red Army after the destruction of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. Top image: SS-Standartenführer and commander of SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 1 of the Leibstandarte SS Fritz Witt puts a combat mission to his subordinates in Peresechnaya in the Kharkov region in March 1943. Also seen in the picture is the commander of the 1.SS-Reconnaissance Battalion SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Meyer and the commander of the 1.Battalion of SS-Panzer-Regiment 1 SS-Sturmbannführer Max Wünsche. Credit: Bekors. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Bottom image: in a series of photographs taken in Kharkov after the fighting was over in the sector, while mopping-up was still under way down the street, a SS-Kriegsberichter and film camera crew arrived to shoot some footage. The pictures show SS-Unterscharführer Paul Klose, a platoon leader in Leibstandarte SS who led his men into the assault of the Maidan Dzerzhynskoho, known to the Germans as the Red Square. He and his men may well have shared a laugh over the strangeness of the day. One minute they were involved in a life and death struggle with flesh and blood enemy and the next moment a camera-man is filming a sham battle. However, Klose was a genuine combat veteran and had just finished leading his men in real fighting. In these pictures, Klose is back in character, with a grenade in his hand and a nonchalant look on his face, suitable for a hard-bitten veteran. Source: Platz der Leibstandarte. Credit: OTL. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

Third Battle of Kharkov: „Das Reich“ and the Kharkov Tractor Plant

SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Das Reich outside the Kharkov Tractor Plant

SS-Kampfgruppe Kumm on the yard of the Kharkov Tractor Plant

The Soviets rushed reinforcements, including a tank brigade and an élite brigade of NKVD security troops, into the city. During the night and into the next day, several Waffen-SS kampfgruppen swept through central Kharkov. Every block had to be cleared of enemy troops. The SS-Panzergrenadiers encountered especially stubborn resistance from NKVD troops in the last remaining pockets of Soviet resistance. On March 14 1943 elements of the 17th NKVD Regiment and the 19th Rifle Division, reinforced by a dozen or so tanks, occupied the tractor factory complex to the southeast of the city. Early in the morning of March 15 1943, Das Reich's SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Deutschland's 2nd battalion, under command of SS-Sturmbannführer Hans Bissinger led the attack on the entrenched NKVD troops and concealed T-34s. The fighting continued until after the darkness fell. On March 16 1943, SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Kumm's Regiment Der Führer's 3rd battalion, arrived and began a final attack to clear the last Soviet troops out of the factory. By mid-morning, the NKVD troops and surviving Soviet infantry abandoned Kharkov and withdrew to the south and east. XLVIII Panzerkorps swept around Kharkov from the south and were soon joined by SS-Kampfgruppe Harmel as they cut of the Soviet 3rd Tank Army's routes of escape across the Donetz. On March 18 1943, the SS-Panzerkorps attacked along the Kharkov-Belgorod railway. Soviet resistance had collapsed and the enemy withdrew to hastily prepared defences on the eastern bank of the Donetz River. The Third Battle of Kharkov was over. Images: battle-hardened Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiers of SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Das Reich during the mopping-up operation at the Kharkov Tractor Plant on March 15-16 1943. A photography from the same slides appeared on the cover of the Deutsche Illustrierte Nr 15 on April 6 1943 with caption: Kampfpause; Grenadiere der Waffen-ϟϟ haben sich mutig geschlagen, auch dieser Stadtteil wurde im gleich starken Einstaz vom letzten Bolschewisten geräumt. Die wohlverdiente Ruhe entspannt eine kurze Zeit die kampferprobten Gesichter. Photos by South Tyrol-born SS-Kriegsberichter Friedrich Zschäckel. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

Donets Campaign: ϟϟ-Sturmbannführer der Waffen-SS Peiper

Joachim Peiper during the Donets Campaign in 1943

Leibstandarte SS troops working their way back to Kharkov

Waffen-SS softening up Soviet positions in the Kharkov oblast

SS-Sturmbannführer Joachim Peiper was awarded the Deutsches Kreuz in Gold for his achievements in February 1943. The medal proposal showed well what the fighting was like in those days: In Stawerowka the battalion was ordered to take Zigderowka. The mission was executed by night against heavy resistance and an enemy battalion was routed, four 7,62 guns, an infantry gun, 10 mortars and many machine guns and hand guns being captured and destroyed. Peiper advanced immediately towards Kasatschij Maidan, encountered an enemy battalion on the march and executed a hasty attack. Here, he inflicted heavy losses on the enemy and took Kasatschij Maidan. From here Peiper prepared his battalion for the attack on Jeremejewka, attacked it at dawn against heavy resistance and took Jeremejewka. Exploiting the confusion among the enemy, the battalion advanced on Leninskij and broke the last resistance. By an immediate advance, he inflicted heavy losses on the enemy which was fleeing through open fields. The battalion destroyed one T-34, six guns 7,62 and captured 300 horses. Three sledge columns were routed. The enemy casualties amounted about to anywhere from 800 to 900. SS-Sturmbannführer Peiper has distinguished himself in all these fights by a sensible command of his battalion and personal bravery and has proven himself worthy of the Deutsches Kreuz in Gold. On March 14 1943 the operation to seize Kharkov was complete. To complete the German victory, SS-Sturmbannführer Peiper and his battalion raced to the north, attacking Belgorod, the last major centre of Soviet resistance in the region, which fell to him on March 18 1943, and establishing contact with the Wehrmacht élite Großdeutschland Division. Top image: Joachim Peiper during the third battle for Kharkov. Credit: Julia Kotterias. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Bottom clips: Leibstandarte SS troops engaged in bitter fighting across the barren steppe in their thrust toward Kharkov during the winter battles of 1943. The 2 cm FlaK 30 where used as anti-aircraft guns and for firing at ground targets. Footage from Die Deutsche Wochenschau. Fair use.

Waffen-SS Officers at the Third Battle of Kharkov

SS-Hauptsturmführer Oskar Wolkerstorfer

SS-Sturmbannführer Georg Bochmann

Left image: the Austrian volunteer SS-Hauptsturmführer Oskar Wolkerstorfer, a veteran since 1937, wearing no less than four Single-Handed Tank Destruction Badges on his right arm. He served in the Das Reich's SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 4 Der Führer and distinguished himself during the battles for Kharkov and was awarded the German Cross in Gold as SS-Obersturmführer by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Kumm. On March 19 1945, Wolkerstorfer was nominated for the Knight's Cross, but he never received the award. His final World War II decoration was the Wound Badge in Gold, which he received on February 13 1945 after being wounded for the sixth time. Oskar Wolkerstorfer died aged 52 on January 11 1971 in Linz, Austria. The studio portrait was taken late 1943. Credit: Slyhoogus. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Right image: the Saxon officer SS-Sturmbannführer Georg Schorsch Bochmann commanded the 3rd Motorised Battalion of the Totenkopf's SS-Panzer-Regiment 3 during the battles for Kharkov and was awarded the Oakleaves to his Knight's Cross on May 17 1943. He then commanded the Totenkopf's Panzer-Regiment through the Battle of Kursk and the subsequent battles along the Mius. Before the war ended Schorsch Bochmann had been awarded the Swords to the Knight's Cross, becoming the 140th recipient, and the prestigious Wound Badge in Gold. Also he was promoted to SS-Oberführer on April 20 1945. With only a few weeks of war left he was appointed Commander of the 17.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Götz von Berlichingen. Georg Schorsch Bochmann died in heart failure aged 59 in 1973 in Offenbach am Main, Germany. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

Occupied Kharkov: ϟϟ-Panzergrenadier-Division „Leibstandarte ϟϟ“

SS-Untersturmführer Werner Wolff

SS-Panzerkorps in Kharkov

The desecration of the graves of Waffen-SS men killed during the Jan. 1943 battles, and the mutilation of the bodies, made the Leibstandarte SS very loath to show any quarter to captured Soviet commissars. Many captured commissars or senior Soviet officers were executed as a matter of routine. An alleged massacre took place on March 13 1943, at the Soviet 69th Army Hospital in Kharkov. Leibstandarte troops are supposed to have killed some hundred wounded Soviet soldiers, but the factual reliability of these Soviet records has occasionally been questioned. On the other hand, however, special German security units and mobile killing squads followed behind the victorious German divisions. The vast majority of these squads on the Eastern Front were made up of East European volunteers. Already by the end of 1942 there was only one German for every ten local auxiliaries. An estimated 10,000 men and women perished during the German short reign of control in the city of Kharkov. Left image: photo of SS-Untersturmführer and adjutant Werner Wolff by SS-KB Max Büschel, probably taken in connection with the award of the Knight's Cross on Aug. 7 1943. Wolff served with SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 2 LSSAH under command of SS-Sturmbannführer Joachim Peiper during the battles for Kharkov. Peiper recommended Wolff for his actions after he stopped a Soviet tank attack. He destroyed one tank single handedly and refused to give ground to the Soviet attack. In Nov. 1943 Wolff was shot through the thigh and was due to have the leg amputated. However, when the medical orderly arrived, he drew his pistol and warned the orderly he was not losing his leg, even firing a warning shot into the ground. According to German author and RK holder Walther-Peer Fellgiebel, Wolff was seriously wounded in the head by shrapnel whilst in the turret of his Panther during Op. Spring Awakening in Hungary on March 20 1945. Werner Wolff died in the military hospital of Gotzendorf an der Leitha in Lower Austria on March 29 1945. Credit: Cassowary. U.S. NARA. Right image: photo believed to show SS troops in captured Kharkov. Credit: Julius Backman. c. Bundesarchiv.

Occupied Kharkov: Maidan Dzerzhynskoho renamed Platz der Leibstandarte

Battle-hardened Panzergrenadiers of Paul Hausser's SS-Panzerkorps

Platz der Leibstandarte

SS-Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser's SS-Panzerkorps gained a great victory in the Third Battle of Kharkov where it destroyed substantial Soviet forces and recaptured the city. The élite Waffen-SS divisions were frequently deployed where the fighting was expected to be the harshest. Many of its casualties were in the city of Kharkov itself, which only fell after five days of intense close-guarter combat. It was solely a Waffen-SS victory, the feat being achieved by the Leibstandarte SS, Das Reich and Totenkopf Panzer Divisions. After enduring the losses necessary to retake the city's blood stained streets the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS renamed Kharkov's town square, then called Maidan Dzerzhynskoho, as “Platz der Leibstandarte” in honour of the fallen. Kharkov was retaken and for the time being the Eastern Front seemed to have stabilized. In preparing the defences of Kharkov the Germans used slave labour in form of 25,000 Soviets, presumably both prisoners of war and conscripted civilians to carry out the work required. Top clip: Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiers after the many small actions across the countryside and the spectacular retake of Kharkov. Footage from Die Deutsche Wochenschau. Fair use. Bottom image: aerial photo of Kharkov's main square Platz der Leibstandarte taken from a German Fieseler Storch reconnaissance plane. After the Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 the square has been renamed the Freedom Square. FU.

Third Battle of Kharkov or the Donets Campaign: Casualties and losses

Pz.Beob.Wg.III of SS-Pz.Korps in the Kharkov area

SS-Panzerkorps Feldlazaretten in Kharkov

Soviet POWs guarded by German Sturmgeschütz IIIs

The SS-Panzerkorps played a key part in the Third Battle of Kharkov, dubbed the Donets Campaign by the Germans. It demonstrated that it was one of the world's foremost armoured formations, holding out against superior odds and then counterattacking with great skill and élan. But the victory in Ukraine was not without its costs. SS-Panzerkorps losses are estimated to 11,500 total casualties during the two-month campaign, including around 160 officers and about 4,300 men killed or missing according to military historian Major General Michael Reynolds. The largest portion of these were borne by the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS but losses within the other two Waffen-SS divisions were as proportionately high, on the other hand, Wehrmacht troops of Heeresgruppe Süd had quite limited losses during the campaign. According to the author Thomas A. Thompson and the military historian David M. Glantz the Donets Campaign had cost the Red Army over 80,000 personnel casualties. Of these troops lost, an estimated 45,200 were killed or went missing, and these from their most mobile forces. Some 52 Soviet divisions were destroyed or rendered combat ineffective during the battles that took place in and around Kharkov. On March 18 1943, the German High Command claimed 19,594 Soviets taken prisoner and 1,140 tanks and 3,000 guns destroyed. Top image: according to some sources, an artillery observation tank Sd.Kfz.143 of the Leibstandarte SS during the Donets Campaign. Photo taken in the Kharkov area in March 1943. U.S. NARA. Middle image: German street signs located at Platz der Leibstandarte advertise locations of the Waffen-SS field hospitals of the Totenkopf, Leibstandarte SS and Das Reich after the retake of Kharkov in March 1943. A field hospital is a small mobile medical unit that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. Public domain. Bottom image: captured Soviets awaiting transport to a POW camp guarded by two German StuG III assault guns. Photo believed taken after the fighting in Kharkov ended. Eßlinger Zeitung/DPA.

Dynamic Young Officers of the Waffen-SS in the Donets Campaign

Joachim Peiper as SS-Obersturmbannführer

Max Wünsche as SS-Sturmbannführer

From the battles in and around Kharkov, SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS emerged with 13 Knight's Crosses of the Iron Cross to its credit, Das Reich 10 and the Totenkopf six. Many of those who were honoured would go on to become some of the best known of all Waffen-SS soldiers, their future careers marked by further awards for gallantry and leadership. Dynamic young officers such as SS-Sturmbannführer Albert Frey, SS-Sturmbannführer Hugo Kraas, SS-Sturmbannführer Joachim Peiper, SS-Sturmbannführer Max Hansen, SS-Sturmbannführer Max Wünsche, SS-Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Weidenhaupt, SS-Obersturmbannführer Kurt Meyer, SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudi Sandig and SS-Standartenführer Fritz Witt personally led attack columns that struck deep into the city. After the recapture of Kharkov and restoration of the German front in February and March 1943 the battle worn Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiers would soon be preparing for one of the greatest battles in history, and one which would certainly be the turning point of World War II – The Battle of Kursk. Left image: within a year after the fierce battles around Kharkov Jochen Peiper was promoted to the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer. Right image: the then SS-Sturmbannführer Max Wünsche up pose in winter garb during the Donets Campaign, known as the Third Battle of Kharkov. Credit: Tobias Kurtz. Private collections, with permission.