by Niklas Zetterling, Anders Frankson
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Product Description
During the second half of 1943, after the failure at Kursk, Germany's Army Group South fell back from Russia under repeated hammer blows from the Red Army. Under Erich von Manstein, however, the Germans were able to avoid serious defeats, while at the same time fending off Hitler's insane orders to hold on to useless territory.Then, in January 1944, a disaster happened. Six divisions of Army Group South became surrounded after sudden attacks by the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts under command of generals Nikolai Vatutin and Ivan Konev around the village of Korsun (near the larger town of Cherkassy on the Dnieper). The Germans' greatest fear was the prospect of another Stalingrad, the catastrophe that had occurred precisely one year before.This time, though, Manstein was in control from the start, and he immediately rearranged his Army Group to rescue his trapped divisions. A major panzer drive got underway, led by General der Panzertruppen Hans Hube, a survivor from Stalingrad pocket, which promptly ran up against several soviet tank armies. Leading the break-in was Franz Baeke with his Tiger and Panther-tanks. Due to both weather and ferocious resistance, the German drive stalled. Ju-52s still flew into Korsun's airfield, delivering supplies and taking out wounded, but it soon became apparent that only one option remained for the beleaguered defenders: breakout.Without consulting Hitler, on the night of February 16 Manstein ordered the breakout to begin. Led by the strongest formation within the pocket, SS Wiking, the trapped forces surged out and soon rejoined the surrounding panzer divisions who had been fully engaged in weakening the ring.When dawn broke, the Soviets realized their prey was escaping. Although the Germans within the pocket lost nearly all of their heavy weapons and left many wounded behind, their escape was effected. Stalin, having anticipated another Stalingrad, was left with little but an empty bag, as Army Group South-this time-had pulled off a rescue. In The Korsun Pocket, Niklas Zetterling, a researcher at the Swedish Defense College since 1995 and Anders Frankson, have provided a highly detailed and often breathtaking account of one of the most dramatic battles of World War II. From grand strategy to soldiers' voices on the ground, including expert statistical analysis, the action, and the stakes, of the battle at Korsun are made vividly clear.
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Average Customer Review:
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Detaild Tactical Review, 2008-09-26
This book deals with the Eastern Front battle of the Korsun Pocket, known to the Germans as the Cherkassy Pocket. The book is a tactical level history of the battle that occured in late 1943, early 1944. The Korsun battle was the second major encirclement (Stalingrad being the first) of German troops by the Red Army. In this case the encirclement was ultimately unsuccessful due to strenuous efforts by the Germans to relieve the encircled troops, though it was a close run affair and the Germans in the pocket lost almost all their heavy equipment during the breakout. The battle is interesting as it is one of the last times on the Eastern front that the Germans were able to muster sufficient forces to launch a major attack on terms that gave them a reasonable chance of success.
The book is generally well written and is based on a great deal of research in both German and Soviet sources. The authors admit that German sources tend to predominate as they are more easily verifiable than Soviet sources. The latter tend to be tainted by the needs of the political climate of the time. There are plenty of maps to assist the reader but few illustrations. The appendices contain a lot of additional data useful to the more serious student of the Eastern front. My major complaint is that key places mentioned in the text often do not appear on the maps and some of the maps lack any indication of scale.
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