Kharkov retaken in Waffen SS counter-attack

14th March 1943: Manstein stabilises the Eastern front as the Tiger begins to make its impact felt on the battlefield

Russia, Kharkov.- Members of the division ‘Das Reich’ of the Waffen-SS on Panzer IV in the recaptured city, March 1943

Soviet Union, at Kharkov.- infantry riding on a panzer of the Waffen-SS-Totenkopf-Division in the suburbs of Kharkov, March 1943.

‘Awakening of civilian life in Kharkov. The streets of the city still show the traces of the fierce fighting, but the first civilians are already appearing.’

Soviet Union, Kharkov.- SS-Standartenführer Fritz Witt - a Nazi hero - standing at a car, reading a map. In 1943, he received the oak leaves to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, which Adolf Hitler personally handed over to him at the Führer headquarters. After his promotion to SS-Obersturmbannführer in June 1943, he became commander of the newly founded 12. SS-Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend".

“On the Soviet front: In the streets of Kharkov.- Kharkov was recaptured on 14.3.43 by elements of the Waffen-SS. In the protection of an infantry fighting vehicle, the regimental commander of an SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division Eichenlaubträger [‘oak leaf carrier’] SS-Standartenführer Witt proceeds with his men.”

In the aftermath of Stalingrad the Red Army mounted a dramatic thrust westwards. They faced weak and depleted German units, exhausted from the struggles of 1942, cobbled together into ‘battle groups’ bolstered with rear-line troops and Luftwaffe units forced to fight as infantry. The Soviet advance reached nearly 500 miles. At the beginning of March, they were headed for the Dniepr River, where they might achieve a great encirclement of the Wehrmacht - a potential knock-out blow.

But the Red Army was becoming over-extended in its rapid advance whilst the Wehrmacht was falling back onto its supply lines. Then II SS Panzer Corps arrived in Russia, a fresh and potent force. And General von Manstein took charge.