This article is excerpted from David Grantz, translated by Xiaoice in the Stalingrad Trilogy
The last 90 sets, the classic limited collection, the 80th anniversary cloth special commemorative edition!- Modian - Novelty Discovered On December 21, the two advance panzer divisions of the 57th Panzer Corps in Kirchna continued to engage in the battle for their landing grounds, while the commander of the Stalingrad Front, Yeremenko, gathered the 2nd Malinovsky Guards Army on the Meshkova River and its north and provided reinforcement for it (see map 51). The 21 December entry in the combat log of Army Group Don reflects the nature of the battle, stating that the 57th Panzer Corps, with the 23rd Panzer Division, had halted and expanded the enemy's offensive on the army's eastern flank and from the southeast on the Vasilyevka landing ground at Gnillo Aksesskaya, but that the 17th Panzer Division's assault at Gromoslavka had "made only marginal progress" (see Appendix 13k of the supplementary volume). 33 Combat of the 2nd Guards Army of the Soviet Army.
The log confirms the description of the combat operations of the day by Army Group "Don":
The troops of the 2nd Guards Army blocked the enemy in the line of Gromoslavka, Ivanovka, Vasilyevka, Kapkinka with stubborn defense. The enemy tried to drive our troops away from Gromoslavka. Eighteen enemy bombers bombed the station in turns, and at 14:30 40 enemy tanks stormed the southern outskirts of Gromoslavka, and after 9 tanks were burned, the rest were forced to retreat to their starting positions.
The Soviets defending Gromoslavka were the 98th Infantry Division under the 1st Guards Infantry Corps, reinforced by the 20th Brigade of the Independent Anti-Tank Destroyer, all of which were part of the 2nd Guards Army.
Farther east, fierce battles for Vasilyevka continued throughout the day, and the battle group of the 6th Panzer Division "Hhnasdorf" received an order to seize the landing ground at any cost. A German account focuses on the high expectations of the officers and men who took part in the rescue operation of the 4th Panzer Army:
* Unable to clear the landing site, the 6th Panzer Division was able to gather forces inside the landing ground and prepare for a new offensive.
The division advanced more than 100 kilometers within the formation of the 57th Panzer Corps and overcame the enemy's stubborn resistance, and its advance force was only 48 kilometers from Stalingrad, which was three-quarters of the way through. It is puzzling why 200,000 soldiers could not cross 50 kilometers to meet us. There are so many rumors about this. Some pat their chests and say that the 6th Army had already been dispatched, others asserted that the 6th Army had left Stalingrad and established contact with the relief troops somewhere nearby, and others believed that a long circuitous line had been opened in the steppe, through which the 6th Army had already been resupplied. The only accuracy in these statements is that the 4th Panzer Army, located in the Kotelnikovo area, really had everything it needed to immediately reinforce the 6th Army if a passage to the 6th Army could be opened.
So far, the 17th and 6th Panzer Divisions have been fighting in both directions, with half of their forces trying to expand the landing ground on the north bank of the Meshkova River, while the other half is trying to eliminate the salient separating the two divisions from the continued Soviet presence. While the 17th Panzer Division rushed east to Gromoslavka along the south bank of the Meshkova River, the 6th Panzer Division went west to Ivanovka. Two panzer divisions eliminated the Soviet-occupied salient by the end of the day. But in the process, Army Group Don received some ominous news: through the interrogation of prisoners of war, it was learned that three cutting-edge Soviet divisions of unknown origin were currently fighting opposite the 57th Panzer Army.
While the Panzer Corps and Panzergrenadiers of the 17th and 6th Panzer Divisions of General von Sengel and General Rolls fought for a vital landing ground on the other side of the Meshkova River, the 23rd Panzer Division of General Boineburg-Rensfeld remained bogged down in the fierce battle of Gnillo Akseskaya. If the 23rd Panzer Division wanted to continue its advance to the northeast, it would have to take Gnelo Akseskaya. But once again, this operation proved to be very difficult.
Strikingly, while the operations of the 57th Panzer Army were crucial to Manstein's strategic deployment, 80 percent of the operational logs of Army Group Don were devoted to the terrible developments in the Italian 8th Army, the Horlitt detachment and the Mitte defense area under Army Group B. This is a clear indication that on 20 and 21 December, the importance of the 4th Panzer Army's rescue operations was declining, overshadowed by the potentially catastrophic events that were taking place elsewhere on the front.
As the day before, the summary of the operations of the General Staff of the Red Army on December 21 is closely related to the entries in the operational log of Army Group "Don" (see Appendix 13m of the subvolume). The 2nd Guards Army continued to defend itself with its advance infantry divisions against the 6th and 17th Panzer Divisions located on the Meshkova River and the landing grounds on the north bank, and reinforced its defenses with new forces that rushed to the front. To the southeast, the 51st Army held the defenses east of Krugliakov, but was forced to cede some territory to the 23rd Panzer Division along the railway line to the north. The most interesting part of this summary of operations is the passage that reads: "The enemy throws in superior infantry and tanks and occupies 111 by the end of the day."8 heights and Vasilyevka area, and detachments of the 3rd Guards Infantry Division surrounded the Kapkinka area. 37 Most Soviet sources indicate that the battalion of the 3rd Guards Infantry Division, under the 1st Guards Infantry Corps, was surrounded later the next day. The reasons for this contradiction are unknown, it is possible that the battalion was surrounded for both days. Another possibility is that the events described on the 22nd actually took place on the 21st. In any case, the 3rd Guards Rifle Division was overstretched, and the commander of the 13th Guards Rifle Army had to throw the 49th Guards Rifle Division into the Vasilyevka and Kapkinsky area to provide support, probably late on December 21, but it was certainly already on the 22nd.
Although the Red Army General Staff's account of the battle was broadly consistent with the German record, the former's operational summary was superior, clarifying the situation in two important respects. First of all, the operational summary identified the three new divisions mentioned by the POWs as the 24th Guards Infantry, the 98th Infantry, and the 3rd Guards Infantry Division within the 1st Guards Infantry Corps of the 2nd Guards Army. Second, the operational summary proved that the Soviets had invested a lot of forces opposite the 57th Panzer Army, which said that Rotmistrov's 7th tank corps was about to reach the Meshkova River area, which had won a major victory at Rychkovsky just a week earlier.
From the German point of view, OKH noted on December 21 that "the 57th Panzer Corps, which was advancing forward, made only marginal progress. The pressure at the Nizhny Kumsky landing site was enormous, making it difficult for the 17th Panzer Division to advance. "The note written by General Greiner in the OKW operational log focuses on the larger question of whether the 4th Panzer Army is capable of relieving the 6th Army:
According to Field Marshal von Manstein, the 4th Panzer Army could not continue to advance from the territory it had reached, and the 6th Army would not be able to break through beyond 30 kilometers.
As always, no final decision was reached. It seems that the Führer no longer has the capacity to make such a decision. The SS "Viking" division or the 7th Panzer Division should be transferred to the "Hoult" corps-level cluster.
On the night of 21 December, what happened in the defense zone of the Italian 8th Army caused acute anxiety attacks on OKW and OKH, and for good reason: it was inevitable that what was happening west of the Don would have a significant impact on operations east of the Don. But the consequences can only be imagined at the moment.
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