Panzer Commander Hermann Balck: Germany’s Master Tactician

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Here the real hell, - informed Shtreker, - unimaginable storm fire has fallen upon our positions. The Earth is literally ploughed up. At us significant losses. However the basic impact, probably, is put on Romanians. I have communicated on phone with the left neighbour, Romanian IV Army Korp. His chief of a staff is adjusted rather pessimistically. He is afraid of a panic in the armies. Our divisions keep firmly, but because of a blizzard very bad visibility. We shall report command on a course has put. What was to do in the circumstances? Pauljus has presented the Main command of overland forces the offer to leave Stalingrad, armies to make the way on a southwest and thus to shun an encirclement. The army group "B" has supported offer Pauljus before Hitler's HQ.

That day, Hitler awarded Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross in the hope it would encourage him to hold out in Budapest, where savage fighting continued. The German and Hungarian defenders were by then compressed into little more than a square mile, centered on Buda’s Castle Hill. However, Pfeffer-Wildenbruch at last had had enough and on February 11 defied the Führer by attempting to break out with his 28,000 surviving troops, moving in three waves. The lead echelon achieved some Russian had a significant numerical superiority and the American commanders have become puzzled, as they are Americans - had no experience of struggle against the enemy in conditions when this enemy had such monstrous superiority in strength. In light of the dramatic collapse of the French armed forces in 1940, it is hard to imagine that up until that point they had been recognized—including by the Germans—as the military masters of Europe. France had emerged victorious over the Germans in the Great War, and imposed the Treaty of Versailles on Berlin, a punitive, humiliating armistice. In the first decade following the war, Germany had been limited to no more than one hundred thousand soldiers, no armored vehicles, and only one hundred “search and rescue” aircraft. France, on the other hand, rebuilt its armed forces following World War I, and in the early 1930s embarked on a major modernization drive, motorizing many of its infantry divisions and beginning to form armored units. Hungary had been a member of the Axis powers since late 1940, but was now looking for a way out of the war. On October 11, 1944, the Hungarian government of Regent Miklós Horthy signed a preliminary armistice agreement with the Soviets in Moscow. In response the German army, along with Hungarian troops of a just-formed breakaway government of loyalists to Germany, occupied the capital of Germany’s wayward ally. Diamonds on 31 August 1944 as General der Panzertruppe and acting commander of the 4. Panzerarmee [8]

We supposed, that the Soviet troops prepare us for all surprises. But we have found this message pure imagination. The chief of an operations section colonel Elhlepp has noticed:

Being in American to a captivity, the description of battle for Sovkhoz «Red Star» was given by the von Mellentin's chief – the commander 48th Panzer Korp general-leitenant von Knobelsdorff. Let command of an army group understands it. I informed about having place. General Besler so hastened, that, probably, soon there will be. The chief of an operations section of 14-th Panzer Division has reported to Schmidt, that Besler already is in the machine on a way to station Chir. He at all did not consider necessary to wait arrival of the receiver. What shame, that such pettiness carries a rank of the general! Fraschka, Günther (1994). Knights of the Reich. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Military/Aviation History. ISBN 978-0-88740-580-8. Once the positions on the west bank of the CHIR had been occupied the headquarters of the Adam Division was dissolved. It was replaced by the division headquarters of Major General von der Gabelente which had been moved out of STALINGRAD just in time. For those who does not know, I shall tell, that such name has the well-known novel Michael Sholokhov for whom he has received the Nobel Prize)The purpose of the conference was to examine twentieth century German military experience in battle against Russian forces with the intent of developing insights useful in aiding our understanding of the challenges NATO faces today in Europe as it prepares to confront the Soviets in any future conflict. The situation was the worst in the sector of the 338th Infantry Division and further to the west in the area south of SUROVIKINO. Infantry elements of the 338th Infantry Division that had arrived until then were holding the high ground on the southern bank of the CHIRin the LISINSKIYCOLOVSKIY sector. They were unable to sweep the dead space of the river bank with their fire. Snow flurries and fog limited visibility. Ziemke, Earl F. (2002). Stalingrad to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East. Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, US Army. ISBN 9781780392875. in German) Die Wehrmachtberichte 1939–1945 Band 2, 1. Januar 1942 bis 31. Dezember 1943 [The Wehrmacht Reports 1939–1945 Volume 2, 1 January 1942 to 31 December 1943]. München, Germany: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. 1985. ISBN 978-3-423-05944-2. The Germans, now being reorganized under Field Marschal Erich von Manstein in the newly established Army Group Don (21 November 1942), immediately recognized the importance of the positions on the lower Chir River. By 27 November 1942, those positions lay closer to the 6th Army than any other German territory on the eastern front. They were also up against the right (north) bank of the Don and critically located to support a drive to relieve Stalingrad from along the left (south) bank of the Don.