Retreat On the Eastern Front.

How exactly did the Germans retreat from the Russians from about 1943 onwards when the Russians had the upper hand?

Did they abandon positions? or did they fight for every inch of soil? if they did fight for every inch, what were their tactics? did they use delaying tactics? or did they use artillery? also, did they use a any tank support after Kursk, or did they not have enough?

I want to know this, because I fail to see how any German officer could hold up the Russian advance without proper tank support, even in fortified positions. The only tactic I can think of was strategic use of artillery against their tanks and infantry. Because by then the Russians had air superiority right? do the German aircraft could make attacks against the enemy easily.

I know might sound like a rookie here, but my expertise is mostly the western front, not the eastern one.

 

Some very general points : The germans used assault guns to delay the Soviet advance,these were more effective than tanks;aircraft were not that important in the east;every Soviet advance had to stop after a certaintime because the Soviet army was not motorised and the tanks had to wait for support and protection by infantry and for supplies;

 

i read that the retreat tactic was like this "through sheer brilliant german intelligance the germans would wait for a known russian assault and then as soon as the assault is launched the germans would retreat thus wasting russian preparation time and materials" .....LOL ahhhh i dont believe it though. this is the other tactic wich seems more credible. because of hitlers no retreat stance individual armies would make fortresses out of the area they hold when the russians come they hold and cause as much nuisance until german relief comes. now german relief never usually came. i read of a pocket of 200 german soldiers trapped behind enemy lines....nobody came....they vanished literally they werent in the russian POW records. as for panzers, since they were scarce they were grouped and used to plug gaps in the lines. air support ..cant help you there buddy sorry. so thats what i know.

 

In Tigers in the Mud, Otto tells the reader of how his Tiger's would be used a shields for the withdrawing infantry. He had great success in accomplishing such tasks using only 4 Tigers.

There were instances however, in which the Germans were not as organized as some would like to perceive. In Bagration, the assault came with such speed that the Germans simply did not have the time to organize a withdraw and ran where ever they could to escape the Red Army advance.

 

von Mellenthin's "Panzer Battles" covers "plan" withdrawals. He describes the German Supreme Command could never decided on a withdrawal while the going was good. It made up its mind either too late or when a retreat had been forced upon the German armies and was already in full swing. He describes as the problems being in orgainzation and descipline in the rear and no so much on pulling back the frontline soldiers.

He goes into detail about that but your question concerns the frontline sooooooo....it was essential to keep the pull out a secret and to conceal the actual retreat as long as possible. The frontline soldiers must move during the night without making any noise with their first stop being as far back as possible. By daybreak, all troops should be in their assigned positions for that day.

That was under 'ideal' conditions. Usually, a retreat was forced after a lost battle. In such a case, Units moved to the rear as fast as possible, not stopping during the next day and those who fell behind were left to fend for themselves. In either situation, intersections had to be controlled, preferably with officers (higher ranking the better) to keep descipline. Engineers assigned to bridges to guard and prepare them for demolition.

He states that luckily for them, the Red Air Force was not as organized and flexible to bring forward fields into rapid operation so harrassment from the air was minimal thus they frequently "got away" with tightly packed convoys, travelling bumper to bumper and presenting superb targets from the air. This is where the staff officers come to play with most being at crucial points to ensure things are going as planned and if not, they are there to take proper action.

So it seems that organized withdrawals did not need artillery support as the frontline soldiers would have already been pulled out and on their way back. It seems that most of the time during the latter years, when a battle is considered lost, the frontline soldiers merely fought on while the rear is pulling out and then break battle and make haste far enough to out drive the Russians and their support system.

 

I'm currently reading Hubert Meyer's History of the 12th Waffen SS Division and I'm at the section where he is describing operations in the East when they were in Hungary. Just got to a section where they are retreated due to the Russians breaking through on the flanks. He describes a hedgehog type of withdrawal where a couple of tanks will stop and guard the retreat. Another group will stand guard further back while the first group pulls back and passes them to set up guard further back.

He also descibed an incident where the Russians were moving so fast that they reached an ammunition dump at the time when a German convoy just pulled in to take as much of the ammo as possible. Only two trucks were loaded only to burn because the only road out came under Russian fire. The dump was blown up by the 5 man German staff assigned to it and walked back towards their rear. They made it. This was in March 45'.

 

More or less the retreat was full of German pockets of resistance and the men in them lost for nothing as KIA or POW´s, as Hitler refused to give any retreat orders. In the final moments the troops tried to escape through the Soviet lines but usually the distance to the German lines was so far that not many made it back. Just to name a couple: Krim ( they escaped by boats who could), Korsun, Bagration, Courland, Budapest,Jassy–Kishinev, Halbe...

 

Air power was essential in delaying the soviet advance. In 1943, before Germany had lost air superiority over Europe, the soviet advance was done with massive casualties, the soviets lost 5 million men to reclaim half of Ukraine.

 

As pointed out in the other posts, Hitler was always very reluctant to authorize a retreat. Even so there were many occasions when his field marshalls had good strategic reasons to order a withdrawal and knew beforehand what Hitler's answer to the request would be. After Stalingrad there were many times when Guderian and Manstein used ploys and trickery in attempts to fool Hitler on strategic deployments of troop units, in order to further the German cause on the Ostfront. Even Waffen SS General Hausser ignored Hitler's "stand fast" order in 1943 in Kharkov and ordered a retreat anyway, and barely managed to save his men and tanks (Manstein's offensive retook the city a few months later).

Anyhow, there were two ways, both as old as warfare itself, that the Germans used during the retreat - and they were important because a retreat could very easily turn into a rout.
the first way was to leave a rear guard. These were troops deliberately left behind to slow the enemy down, while the main body escaped. It was of course usually a suicide mission, as the German troops left behind were being sacrificed, because they were almost certain to be killed or taken prisoner (at best) and it wast likely they would ever make it back to the German lines.

The other method to slow down the enemy was "scorched earth". The Germans destroyed everything behind them that could be of use to the enemy. Cattle were killed, ammunition blown up, fuel supplies burned or dumped on the ground. Wells were poisoned, buildings were booby trapped, even the railroad tracks were ripped up (using a special hooked attachment that tore the ties apart as the last train left for the West).

the Red Army was powerful but was all tooth and very little tail. All Russian offensives had to halt after one or two hundred miles in order for supplies and fuel to catch up with them, because the Russians devoted a much smaller percent of their army to supply troops, engineers and the like, then any allied army. If everything of use in the area was destroyed, the russians had to wait sometimes weeks and months for enough supplies to build up to allow the advance to go forward again.

 

Guys...

Has anyone seen an English copy of Mainstein's order to AG South, Sep 15, 1944 to retreat from the Don to the Dneiper. I can't even find a German copy. Any ideas. Thanks.

 

Bigun, do you mean the Cherkassy pocket?

"In September, he skilfully withdrew to the west bank of the River Dnieper, while inflicting heavy casualties on the pursuing Red Army. From October to mid January of 1944,von Manstein "stabilized" the situation but in late January was forced to retreat further westwards by the new Soviet offensive. In mid February of 1944, von Manstein disobeyed Hitler's order and ordered 11th and 42nd Corps (consisting of 56000 men in six divisions) of his Army Group South to breakout from the "Cherkassy Pocket", which occurred on February 16/17th.Eventually, Hitler accepted this action and ordered the breakout after it already took place."

Achtung Panzer! - Erich von Manstein!

The frontline in March 1944:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Feste_Plätze_Ostfront_1944.png

 

Lot of things which been written here is correct, somethings not. First of all I will try to answer the question how (which kind of tactic) exactly did the Germans retreat from the Russians from about 1943 onwards when the Russians had the upper hand (that´s I guess the question of Centurio-Cato, right). This question isn´t very easy to answer, because there some aspects to consider:
After the battle of Kursk it was clear that the eastern-front was too long to be able to keep it in the long term around with the existing troops. So Hitler explained certain cities to "firm Places" - these places were strategically important places (like Witebsk, Orscha, Minsk). These places were removed to fortresses -as good as possible - and Hitler orded that these places the german units have to fight for every inch of soil. These places should have astrategic function like "Wavebreakers". In Hilter´s opinion this seemed to be the only way not to retreat the whole front for hundreds of kilometers (what he would never accept).
The german units had around 3 Mio. soldiers when they attacted russia in 1941 - in 1943 nearly 1.000.000 of these soldiers where killed in action. Many divisions had only 50-60% of the normal size (normal size of a german infantry division was 15.000 soldiers)
The russians were clever enough not to attack these "firm-places" first - the russians pushed with their units past the fortresses and so the German units lost their connection to the rear. When the field marshalls wanted to order a withdrawal to avoid an encircling of the troops near the "frim-places" Hitler often didn´t authorize them to retreat. In later 1943 and 1944 some of fieldmarshalls ignored Hitlers orders - to save their soldiers, units, bataillions or divisions (marc780 mentioned Haussers order for a retreat at Charkov 1943).
Often it was necessary for a succesfull retreat you have to leave some units as a kind of a retreat guard. These units had to slow down the enemy while the main part of the units escaped. Also you have to take care for the flanks of the retreat.
These german units who were left as a retreat guard often been motorized so that they have the chance to escape as well. Naturally the chances to escape weren´t very well, but there are many examples that these units were able to go back behind the own lines. There are several books which described these situations. The germans troops fought with all the possibilties they got left - the worst case for the german soldiers were certainly to be taken as a POW by the russians (on the western front it was different!). Although naturally several times the german units were encirceled and often been destroyed. Some encirceled units built what been called "Wandering Kessel" - these units fighting in each direction while moving towards the own lines)
Yes, and the german used another method to slow down the enemies - this method was called "scorched earth". The german order for "scorched earth" by the retreating troops was the second "scorched earth order" on russian ground during WW II! The first order was given by Stalin on 3 of july 1941 to the russians itself! He orded to destroy all bridges, streets and all other own capacities to slow the german attac - by the same reason the germans had during her withdrawals till late 1943. So in 1943 the german troops destroyed everything behind them that could be of usefull for the russians. All what had happened by russians in 1941/1942 happened now by the german soldiers- ammunition blown up, fuel supplies burned or dumped on the ground. Wells were poisoned, buildings were booby trapped, even the railroad tracks were ripped up (Marc780 mentioned that ...)

 

The fortress cities tactics did not seem to work in the east, on the contrary, but in the west I think the holding on onto the harbour cities seemed to have some effect to the warfare.

 

Naturally holding habour cities have totally different effects. In the east you had the joice to pass the fortress cities and encircle them but you wouldn´t be able to do this by an harbour city, right (only if you a have a little fleet too to encircle the habour city.

 

think about how many Panzerfausts were available to the Landser on the Ost Front ..................plenty. one detail easily forgotten but was the carnage imposed upon the T-34 units trying to cut through the Prussian marshes in 1945. a former friend of mine now gone, was once of many that launched some interesting surprises on the Soviets with anything available that could knock out a tank. Ost Preussia was one of the worst mile for mile engagements the Soviets ever encountered to the gates of Berlin.

 

The distance between a tank and someone who want to destroy the tank by using a Panzerfaust had to be between 30 and 60 meters! You probably are able to understand that you have to be very very cool to fight against a tank to such a small distance. Naturally in 1945 there were many Panzerfaust delivered to the frontlines but there were a complete lack of soliders, heavy weapons, no effective air-defence, less ammunition and artillery ...
Ost-Preussia wasn´t important for the russian troops on their way to Berlin. The russians started the main attack on Berlin more southwards. They encirceled several german divisions in Ost-Preussia by an raid to the Baltic Sea, so they cut the connections of these units to the rear lines. Hitler didn´t allow a withdrawal of these units.
Unfortunatell in Ost-Preussia and Schlesia the soviet-army committed a multiplicity of war crimes to the innocent civilian population as revanche of what happened in russia years before. Königsberg was declared as a fortress too ... but at this point of war these kind of "tactics" made no longer sence at all - it only extended senseless killing and dying

 

actually they did not go by Sea the maps prove this when forming a Kessel in Prussia in different locations. by sea it was the Soviet submarines that did the job of sinking anything that floated in the Baltic and Soviet bombers in reference to retreat westward and to Denmark/Germany

Prussia you may say was separate from Berlin but accordingly to German veterans it was all part of the last battles for the once great city. this is the reason why it is hard to differentiate day and night kills by the LW in the corresponding areas they are lumped together. yes agree a front developed southward according to western sources for the taking of Berlin.

 

Hello Erich,
which time you´re talking about? Here are two maps which show that the russian troops cut the connections to the rear lines between 01/1945 and 2/1945, so they isolate the last units and the old men who fought in Ost Prussia ...

 

old men you say ?

there are several maps of the areas in Prussia assaulted and then pushed back by several Wehrmacht units and then attacked and attacked again. this stems from the very first invasion towards Ebenröde in October of 44 when the Soviets got butt kicked pretty hard and had to rethink their invasion plans.

mapping was literally a week by week progression.. city of Königsberg comes to mind defended by at least a dozen different units and without doubt bled till they were no more and the retreat towards the Dänziger Bucht/Hela and then off the stinking piece of ground. A good friend in the KM Marine Div was one of the few left setting off explosives in the face of Soviet armor/Infantrie, later captured and then escaped to be captured again by French soldiers who beat him up severely.

 

Erich, I asked you which time you´re talking about, right? You´re talking about late 1944/beginning of January 1945. If we are talking about this period I agree with you completely - but the situation was different in Ost-Prussia in late Feb 45/march 45. And I am sorry but Hela is not a part of Ost-Prussia