In late 1943, the German Army on the Eastern Front was in dire straits. Its southern army group had been pushed out of eastern Ukraine, and on 6 November 1943, Kiev-one of the Soviet Union's largest cities-was retaken by an increasingly capable Soviet Red Army. To prevent the total collapse of his army group's front line, Generalfeldmarschall von Manstein had no choice but to launch a counterattack to halt the Red Army's advance and recapture the Ukrainian capital. On 7 November, two Panzer divisions attached to the XLVIII Panzerkorps plunged into the Red Army's positions southwest of Kiev, stopping the Red Army in its tracks. Five days later, two more Panzer divisions joined the counterattack, and the XLVIII Panzerkorps achieved numerous tactical victories as it marched northeast. Commanded by General der Panzertruppen Balck after mid-November, the XLVIII Panzerkorps continued producing tactical success as it swept aside disorganized resistance from Soviet General Vatutin's First Ukrainian Front, and recaptured important towns and logistics hubs on the path to Kiev. German hopes for the city's recapture were dashed in late November, however, as Vatutin's armies were finally able to stop the German advance, inflict heavy losses, and force Balck to end the counterattack In his postwar memoir, General der Panzertruppen Balck claimed that meddling by higher-level commanders and poor weather squandered his efforts to recapture Kiev. His Soviet opponents claimed the opposite: a superior Red Army defeated the XLVIII Panzerkorps, and claims about poor weather were merely self-serving justifications for German failure. This first full-length treatment of this forgotten battle definitively answers these questions, correcting the historical record on many unknown, ambiguous, and contentious details relating to the XLVIII Panzerkorps counterattack, and in doing so, shedding light on the nature of combat on the Eastern Front in late 1943. AUTHOR: Since his youth, Simon Waring has had an avid interest in military history, a passion he pursued by obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science degree from the University of Ottawa and a Master of Arts in War Studies degree from the Royal Military College of Canada. Simon's research primarily focuses on German?Soviet operations on the Eastern Front of the Second World War, but this has not precluded his interest in other subjects; he regularly contributes articles on strategy, United States history, and contemporary Canadian foreign policy to a variety of publications, including SITREP: The Journal of the Royal Canadian Military Institute. Simon lives and works in Toronto, Canada. 19 images, 9 maps
