The Battle of Rostov (1941) was a battle of the
Eastern Front of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, fought around
Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the Eas ...
between the
Army Group South of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and the
Southern Front of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
.
The battle comprised three phases: the German Sea of Azov Offensive Operation by Army Group South (General
Gerd von Rundstedt) (begun on 12 September 1941),
[p.87, Haupt, Army Group South] the Soviet Rostov Defensive Operation (5 November 1941 – 16 November 1941) by the Southern Front (General
Yakov Timofeyevich Cherevichenko), and the Rostov Offensive Operation (27 November 1941 – 2 December 1941) executed by the same Soviet Front.
After forcing their way across the
Mius River on 17 November, the German forces captured 10,000 Soviet troops and took Rostov on 21 November. Six days later the Southern Front, reinforced with the newly raised
37th Army, counterattacked from the north and threatened to surround the overstretched German
III Motorized Army Corps. Rundstedt then ordered a retreat to the Mius line from Rostov to prevent the encirclement, which prompted Hitler to immediately fire him. Rundstedt's successor
Walther von Reichenau confirmed the retreat order with the backing of the
Army High Command
The Army High Command (ACE) of Brazil is formed by the Army Commander and other army generals in active service. The country currently holds sixteen active 4-star generals, several of then in command posts, in addition to a post in the Ministry of ...
Chief of Staff
Franz Halder
Franz Halder (30 June 1884 – 2 April 1972) was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and implementation of Operati ...
and Hitler relented. The Red Army retook Rostov on 28 November. It was the first successful major Soviet counteroffensive of the war.
Prelude
After concluding the
Battle of Kiev in September 1941, the German
Army Group South advanced from the
Dniepr River
}
The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...
to the
Sea of Azov
The Sea of Azov ( Crimean Tatar: ''Azaq deñizi''; russian: Азовское море, Azovskoye more; uk, Азовське море, Azovs'ke more) is a sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about ) Strait of Ker ...
coast.
Walther von Reichenau's
6th Army captured Kharkov in the
First Battle of Kharkov.
Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel
Carl-Heinrich Rudolf Wilhelm von Stülpnagel (2 January 1886 – 30 August 1944) was a German general in the Wehrmacht during World War II who was an army level commander. While serving as military commander of German-occupied France and as comm ...
's
17th Army advanced through
Poltava
Poltava (, ; uk, Полтава ) is a city located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the capital city of the Poltava Oblast (province) and of the surrounding Poltava Raion (district) of the oblast. Poltava is administrativel ...
towards
Voroshilovgrad
Luhansk (, ; uk, Луганськ, ), also known as Lugansk (, ; russian: Луганск, ), is a city in what is internationally recognised as Ukraine, although it is administered by Russia as capital of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). ...
.
Erich von Manstein's
11th Army moved into the
Crimean Peninsula and took control of all of the peninsula by autumn (except
Sevastopol
Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...
, which held out until 3 July 1942).
Ewald von Kleist's 1st Panzer Army advanced from Kiev, and encircled Soviet troops at
Melitopol
Melitopol ( uk, Меліто́поль, translit=Melitópol’, ; russian: Мелитополь; based on el, Μελιτόπολις - "honey city") is a city and municipality in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in southeastern Ukraine. Melitopol has been ...
in October, then attacked east along the shore of the Sea of Azov toward
Rostov at the mouth of the
Don river, known as the gateway to the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
.
Sea of Azov Offensive Operation
Rostov was assigned as the objective for the
11th Army now commanded by General
Eugen Ritter von Schobert
Eugen Siegfried Erich Ritter von Schobert (13 March 1883 – 12 September 1941) was a German general during World War II. He commanded the 11th Army during Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Schobert died when his observati ...
, however he died in a crash on the same day after landing his liaison aircraft in a minefield.
To replace him, Manstein was ordered to travel from the Leningrad sector of the front to the extreme southern sector. He would also receive support from the
4th Luftwaffe Air Fleet.
At this time the
LIVth Army Corps of the 11th Army was still engaged in Crimea, and because the Romanian forces were still engaged in the
Siege of Odessa
The siege of Odessa, known to the Soviets as the defence of Odessa, lasted from 8 August until 16 October 1941, during the early phase of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II.
Odessa was a port on the ...
, the Army's resources for the Rostov objective were severely limited even against retreating Red Army troops. Therefore, Manstein initially replaced the LIV Corps with the smaller
XXXth Army Corps and
XLIXth Mountain Corps and ordered the LIV Corps into the first echelon in the advance to Rostov.
Late in September, the
Romanian 3rd Army
The 3rd Army (Armata a 3-a Română) was a field army of the Romanian Land Forces active from the 19th century to the 1990s. It fought as part of the German Army Group B during World War II, in Ukraine, the Crimea, and the Caucasus. General Pe ...
joined the 11th Army in its advance towards Rostov, but was severely depleted by the attacks of the Soviet
9th and
18th Armies on 26 September. This forced a halt to the Army's advance to safeguard its flank and forced Manstein to use his only mobile reserve unit, the
Leibstandarte Brigade to shore up Romanian defenses.
[p. 91, Haupt, Army Group South]
Rostov Defensive Operation
The Soviet counter-attack delivered as part of the general
Donbass-Rostov Strategic Defensive Operation (29 September 1941 – 16 November 1941) also forced Rundstedt's Army Group South to order his
1st Panzer Army
The 1st Panzer Army (german: 1. Panzerarmee) was a German tank army that was a large armoured formation of the Wehrmacht during World War II.
When originally formed on 1 March 1940, the predecessor of the 1st Panzer Army was named Panzer Gro ...
to manoeuvre in order to be better placed to counter any further Soviet thrusts in the Romanian sector of the front, and also to attempt an encirclement of the two Soviet Armies, which was partly successful in the area of
Chernigovka where on 8 October the commander of the 18th Soviet Army, General-Lieutenant A.K. Smirnov, was killed by artillery fire on his command post in the village of Popovka during the breakout attempt
between 5 and 10 October 1941. This was interpreted by Hitler as such a success that he declared "The battle of the Sea of Azov is over" on 11 October before the troops had even reached their objective. As a commemorative gesture, Hitler issued the order to redesignate the Leibstandarte Brigade as SS Division Leibstandarte.
The German 11th Army was ordered back to Crimea to effect the
breakthrough of the
Isthmus of Perekop.
Perceiving that the way to Rostov and the Caucasus was open, Hitler issued an order transferring the objective from the 11th Army to the 1st Panzer Army and attaching to it the ill-prepared Romanian 3rd Army, the
Italian Alpine Corps, and the
Slovakian Motorised Brigade.
During the subsequent reorganisation of Axis forces the
III Panzer Corps and
XIV Panzer Corps
XIV Panzer Corps (also: XIV Army Corps or XIV. ''Armeekorps'') was a corps-level formation of the German Army which fought on both the Eastern Front and in the Italian Campaign.
History
The XIV Panzer Corps was originally formed as the XIV Mot ...
took the lead, supported by the XLIX Mountain Corps recently arrived from Crimea.
By 17 October 1941 the
Mius River was crossed by the
14th Panzer Division
The 14th Panzer Division (german: 14. Panzer-Division) was an armoured division in the German Army during World War II. It was created in 1940 by the conversion of the 4th Infantry Division.
The division took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia ...
and
Taganrog was captured by German troops, with the mountain troops entering
Stalino, forcing the newly formed
12th Army into a renewed withdrawal. However, the autumn rains had begun, and the
Rasputitsa ("roadlessness") had set in slowing the 1st Panzer Army's advance to "meter by meter". This meant that the leading German units did not reach the outskirts of Rostov until mid-November, having lost contact with the Red Army in the meantime.
The assault on Rostov began on 17 November, and on 21 November the Germans took the city. However, the German lines were over-extended, and Kleist's warnings that his left flank was vulnerable and that his tanks were ineffective in the freezing weather were ignored.
Rostov Offensive Operation
On 27 November the
37th Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General
Anton Ivanovich Lopatin, as part of the
Rostov Strategic Offensive Operation (17 November 1941 – 2 December 1941), counter-attacked the 1st Panzer Army's spearhead from the north, forcing them to pull out of the city.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
countermanded the retreat. When Rundstedt refused to obey, Hitler sacked him, and replaced him with Reichenau. However, Reichenau saw at once that Rundstedt was right and succeeded in persuading Hitler, via
Franz Halder
Franz Halder (30 June 1884 – 2 April 1972) was a German general and the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) in Nazi Germany from 1938 until September 1942. During World War II, he directed the planning and implementation of Operati ...
, to authorise the withdrawal,
[Clark, Alan (1965). Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict 1941–45; p. 178] and the 1st Panzer Army was forced back to the
Mius River at
Taganrog. It was the first significant German withdrawal of the war.
See also
*
Battle of Rostov (1942) – the German 17th Army captured the city.
*
Battle of Rostov (1943) – the Soviet Union recaptured the city.
References
Sources
*Haupt, Werner, Army Group South: The Wehrmacht in Russia 1941-1945,
Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, 1998
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rostov, Battle Of (1941)
1941 in the Soviet Union
Conflicts in 1941
Battles and operations of the Soviet–German War
Battles of World War II involving Germany
Battles involving the Soviet Union
November 1941 events
Battles of World War II involving Romania