Operation 'Platinfuchs' Was an Early Nazi Defeat on the Eastern Front

Operation 'Platinfuchs' Was an Early Nazi Defeat on the Eastern Front

by SÉBASTIEN ROBLIN The Soviet navy during World War II is perhaps best remembered for its vigorous role in the doomed defense of the ports of Odessa and Sevastopol in the Crimean Sea. However, in the Arctic north, the Soviet warships would have a major impact in the opening months of the war with Nazi Germany.

BATTLE OF KURSK, (JULY 5–23, 1943)

The greatest armored battle in history and one of the largest battles ever fought. The limited success of the Soviet Orel-Briansk offensive operation under General Konstantin Rokossovsky in February and March, along with Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s successful southern operations ( DON and the Third Battle of Kharkov ), set the lines of the Kursk bulge, a Soviet salient that projected 100 miles deep into German lines. The Wehrmacht built up unprecedented forces around Kursk from March to June. The great mass of German armor was ordered to the area, to ready to slice off the salient. Meanwhile, the Red Army also built up huge forces inside the bulge as well as along its wider flanks. The Soviets knew of the German plans and intended to meet them with even larger, well-hidden tank and air formations under Marshal Georgi Zhukov. These were deployed in a deep defensive field designed to absorb and bog down the German assault in its earliest stages. After strategically overreaching and failing in December 1941–February 1942, and again in January–March 1943, Joseph Stalin and the Stavka had at last recognized a deep truth about the war: it was fundamentally an exercise in sustained attrition necessary to wear down the Wehrmacht before any decisive thrust could be made into the vitals of Nazi Germany. Soviet forces therefore deployed in an extraordinarily deep set of seven defensive belts designed to absorb, bog down, and kill German armored thrusts at price of massive but accepted Soviet casualties and loss of equipment. The armor, artillery, infantry, and air combat that ensued combined to form the largest battle ever fought. Some 3.5 million troops in total fought at Kursk, nearly half the 8.5 million positioned that summer along a 1,500-mile long Eastern Front.

The German offensive plan, ZITADELLE, was delayed several times from April to July, partly for technical reasons and to refit on the German side but also because of the spring rasputitsa. During the postponements German and Soviet casualties dropped significantly. But there was also a building sense of violent tension as each side waited for the summer explosion into combat. Where Adolf Hitler grew evermore cautious and dubious about ZITADELLE as time passed, the Stavka had to restrain Stalin’s urge to attack prematurely. Zhukov’s plan was to draw the German armor into the Soviet defensive belts, in some places 175 miles deep. Only then would he spring a great trap around the Panzer columns with simultaneous counteroffensives on either side of the salient. For that, he held back huge Fronts whose presence was hidden from B-dienst and the Abwehr by some of the most elaborate and successful maskirovka operations of the war. In the south, the counteroffensive was given the additional task of retaking Kharkov and Belgorod, which had been lost to Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and the SS 2nd Panzer Corps in March. Soviet intelligence was unusually good at Kursk, although it mistook the Schwerpunkt as the north side of the salient whereas the Germans believed it was in the south and concentrated their effort there. Information came from multiple sources that allowed the VVS to catch the Luftwaffe on the ground, attacking forward airfields in a set of pre-emptive strikes carried out from May 6–8. And it then gave the Stavka three days advance notice of the precise hour of the German assault. That enabled Soviet artillery to hammer the armor spearheads at their jump-off points before dawn on July 5. Shelling massed Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS formations just 10 minutes before they were set to attack the first defense belt according to the usual, precise German instructions staggered the attacking troops, upset timetables, and shook the confidence of Hitler and the OKH. The armor and artillery battles that followed, as Panzer columns cut into the salient and through the first defensive belts, were bloody and destructive. The climax came in an armor battle at Prokhorovka, still the single greatest armored battle in history. From that point, Kursk became a vast and chaotic Kesselschlacht —or rather, a great kotel —that engaged over 5,000 tanks and lesser armored vehicles, thousands of guns, several thousand combat aircraft, and several million troops.

The Battle of Kursk saw Germans using aircraft to make up for losses suffered at Stalingrad and in Africa. Specialized Junkers Ju 87G Stukas and Henschel Hs 129Bs were used as flying artillery to compensate for weak ground artillery. Junkers Ju 87G Stuka was the most successful version was the Ju 87G1. This close-support aircraft’s armament consisted of two 37mm BK Flak 18 or Flak 36 cannons mounted under the wing. As German air superiority faded, the thinly armored, slow-moving Stuka was relegated to occasional ground attacks. Their formations were responsible for killing hundreds of Russian tanks. On the Russian side, Ilyushin Il-2M3 Shturmoviks armed with 37mm cannons were used with devastating effect against German armor.

In addition to the flying antitank weapons, the Germans armed their Focke-Wulf Fw 190As with SD-1 and SD-2 antipersonnel containers that rained down fragmentation bomblets on infantry and artillery positions.

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The air battle was also huge. The Red Army suffered about 70,000 casualties of all types in the fighting at Kursk, excluding the wider Soviet counteroffensives on either side of the salient, which cost another 100,000 men. The Soviets lost nearly 500 aircraft and more than half the armor force they deployed, or over 1,600 tanks. In the main battle the Germans lost 57,000 men and considerably fewer tanks and planes, about 300 and 200, respectively. However, they lost so many tanks and planes in the related Soviet counteroffensives that followed Kursk—Operations KUTUZOV and RUMIANTSEV —that the Wehrmacht never again launched a strategic offensive operation on the Eastern Front. Instead, it surrendered the initiative and was confined to local counterattacks. Germany was already being out-produced in major weapons systems. Despite temporarily regaining a technical advantage with its Panthers and Tigers, it was out-produced in armor in such quantities by the Soviet Union and Western Allies that it never recovered its relative position from the loss of combat power in men and war machines suffered in the summer of 1943. For that reason, Kursk is often identified as the major turning point along the Eastern Front, more so even than Stalingrad. The Red Army for the first time at Kursk succeeded in physically blunting a major German offensive, rather than just defending desperately against it until the Wehrmacht ran out of momentum, as happened before at Moscow in December 1941, and at Stalingrad in November 1942. Then the Stavka launched a set of massive counteroffensives, which completely fooled the Germans in their direction, intentions, and timing. Kursk was, in Heinz Guderian’s expert estimation, the decisive defeat for Germany to that point in the war. After Kursk, the Soviets took the strategic offensive, starting a long and bloody drive that ended only with Hitler’s death in the “Führerbunker” beneath the ruins of Berlin in May 1945.

And yet, arms and aircraft production for both armed forces increased to the end of 1943 and again in 1944, while enlistments swelled new divisions, armies, and army groups. Most casualties suffered along the Eastern Front in World War II still lay in the future. Kursk no doubt massively accelerated the pace of destruction of German military power. But it cannot be argued that, had the Soviets lost at Kursk, the final outcome of the war would have been placed in grave doubt. Not even the greatest battle ever fought was sufficient to decide the larger armed struggle between mighty industrial empires. To decide the war in the east it would take a series of additional battles—a full campaign—fought hard to the end of 1943, then more savage campaigns along several axes of Soviet advance and German counterattack in 1944, and yet more thrusts and fighting and destruction over the first four months of 1945. Meanwhile, the air war continued over Germany and heavy fighting took place in Italy, while the Western powers did not invade France until mid-1944, after which there remained 11 months of fighting in the west. While it cannot really be said, therefore, that Kursk was “the” decisive victory or defeat of World War II, it certainly numbered among its greatest battles and did much to confirm and accelerate the trajectory of attrition that led to ultimate Soviet victory and German defeat.

Suggested Reading: Walter S. Dunn, Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble, 1943 (1997); David M. Glantz and Harold S. Orenstein, eds., The Battle for Kursk, 1943 (1999).

 

Battle of Gravelotte–St. Privat

Date: August 18, 1870

Location: Villages of Gravelotte and St. Privat in eastern France

Opponents: (* winner)

*Germans

French

Commanders:

*Germans Prince Friedrich Karl; General Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz

French Marshal François Achille Bazaine; Marshal François Certain Canrobert

Approx. # Troops:

*Germans 188,000

French 112,000

Importance: The French inflict heavier casualties on the Germans but withdraw to the fortress of Metz, missing a chance to break free.

The Battle of Gravelotte-St. Privat was an important battle during the Franco- Prussian War (1870-1871). In 1866 Prussian minister-president Otto von Bismarck had engineered a war with Austria that ended with Prussia becoming the dominant power in northern Germany. Although Prussia dominated the new North German Confederation, Bismarck knew that he could not complete his plan of unifying Germany under Prussian leadership without first defeating France.

French emperor Napoleon III had been humiliated by the 1866 war. Promised compensation by Bismarck in return for French neutrality, Napoleon expected that the war would be of long duration and that France would then be able to impose a settlement. The war lasted only seven weeks, far too short for France to have any role in determining peace terms. When Napoleon pressed for compensation, Bismarck asked for it to be put in writing. When Napoleon complied, Bismarck reneged. Later he used the document to help secure defensive alliances with the southern German states of Baden, Bavaria, and Württemberg. Furious, French leaders were bent on revenge, yet the government did little to prepare the French Army for war. 

In 1870 Bismarck attempted to present the French with a fait accompli by placing the German Catholic Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen on the throne of Spain. The French government learned of the secret plan, and Foreign Minister Duc Antoine de Gramont demanded, through French ambassador to Prussia Count Vincent Benedetti, that the candidacy be withdrawn. Prussian king Wilhelm I, at Ems and away from Bismarck in Berlin, agreed. 

France thus achieved a mild diplomatic victory, but Gramont wanted more. He ordered Benedetti to secure a pledge for the future that no Prussian prince ever be a candidate for the throne of Spain. Wilhelm I politely but firmly rejected the request and communicated this information to Bismarck, who then edited the communication and released it to the press. This Ems Dispatch was so cleverly presented that it inflamed opinion in both countries and led to war. Most Europeans were not aware of Bismarck's hand in events and blamed France. 

French government ministers had whipped up public opinion to the point that it was next to impossible to back down. Premier Émile Olivier encouraged the national illusions by saying that he "accepted war with a light heart." Among the French leadership, only Napoleon expressed doubts. Minister of War Edmond Leboeuf's assertion that the army was ready "down to the last gaiter button" was entirely misplaced. 

On July 15, 1870, the French Corps Législatif (the elected branch of parliament) nonetheless voted war credits, with only 10 deputies dissenting. Prussia mobilized immediately. From this point there was no wavering on either side, and on July 19 the French government declared war. Prussia's treaties with the southern German states now came into force, so it was really a Franco-German war.

By the end of July, chief of the Prussian General Staff General Count Helmuth von Moltke had positioned three armies of some 380,000 in the Rhineland along the French frontier. From north to south, these were General Karl Friedrich von Steinmetz's First Army of 60,000 men, Prince Friedrich Karl's Second Army of 175,000 men, and Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm's Third Army of 145,000 men. Moltke held another 95,000 troops in reserve until he was certain that Austria would not intervene. King Wilhelm I had nominal command, but Moltke exercised actual command authority through the General Staff. The Prussians were fully prepared for the war, and their military intelligence and maps of France were both excellent. The French mobilization was not complete by the time the war began. The French Army deployed some 224,000 men in eight corps. The army had élan, but its recent military experience was in North Africa. The French breech-loading Chassepot rifle was superior to the basic Prussian rifle, the Dreyse Needle Gun. The French also had a new weapon in the mitrailleuse, which formed about a fifth of the French artillery. Developed in great secrecy, it was a 37-barrel machine gun that could fire about 150 shots a minute and had a range of some 2,000 yards. A lot depended on how the mitrailleuse was deployed, and the French chose to use it as artillery at long range, where it was inaccurate and could be destroyed by the new Prussian Krupp artillery. French mobilization procedures, logistical arrangements, and military intelligence were all abysmal. There was no general staff in the Prussian sense of the term, and senior military leadership was inept and unimaginative. 

At the end of July, Napoleon ordered a general advance. The emperor was not well, but he accompanied the army in the field. On August 2 a skirmish at Saarbrücken, just across the border, saw the French advancing from the fortress of Metz to scatter the few Prussian troops defending there, although the French failed to occupy the city. Moltke then attacked to the south, driving French forces back toward Strasbourg. Attempting to halt this offensive, on August 6 Marshal Patrice MacMahon sacrificed his cavalry in gallant but costly charges near the town of Fröschwiller (Wörth). MacMahon was forced to evacuate Alsace, and the road to Paris was now open to the Prussians.

To the north a second Prussian thrust enjoyed success at Spieheren, and Napoleon ordered Metz abandoned. The emperor's defeatism rapidly spread through the army. On August 12 Napoleon yielded field command to Marshal François Achille Bazaine to lead a reorganized Army of the Rhine. Napoleon departed for Chalons in order to raise a new army. Moltke sought to cut off the withdrawing French, but in the ensuing August 16 battles at Vionville, Merse-la-Tour, and Rezonville the French fought well. They lost 13,761 men to 15,780 for the Prussians, but Bazaine, having given up hope of breaking out, ordered the army to return to Metz. 

On August 18 Moltke attacked Bazaine with his First Army and Second Army, hoping to destroy the French. The battle was fought between the villages of St. Privat la Montaigne and Gravolette, with the major point of combat the walled village of St. Privat. This battle differed from previous engagements in its size-more than 188,000 Germans with 732 guns fought 112,000 French with 520 guns-and in that both sides expected it. 

At St. Privat, commander of the Second Army Friedrich Karl sent in the elite Prussian Guard against Marshal François Certain Canrobert's VI Corps. The attackers lost 8,000 men, and Canrobert's corps of 23,000 men held against some 100,000 Germans. Bazaine ignored Canrobert's pleas for reinforcement. Not until a Saxon corps arrived to the north and threatened to cut off his force was Canrobert obliged to order a withdrawal back toward Metz.

Meanwhile, on the French right two German corps battled their way east of Gravolette, only to become trapped in a ravine. The German attempt to disengage resulted in a panicked withdrawal. The French counterattack was checked only by effective German artillery fire and Moltke's personal intervention with reinforcements. Although the French withdrew, the next morning there was little sense of victory among the Germans. They had lost some 20,163 men; the French lost 12,273 men.

The tragedy of St. Privat-Gravolette for the French was that had Bazaine made a concerted effort there, he would most likely have achieved a victory and broken free. As it was, on August 19 the French were back at Metz, where the Germans promptly sealed them in. The separation of their two field armies proved a disaster for France.

References Howard, Michael. The Franco-Prussian War. New York: Routledge, 2001. Wawro, Geoffrey. The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870- 1871. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.