Battle of Kiev (1941)

Battle of Kiev Part of the Eastern Front of World War II The eastern front at the time of the Battle of Kiev. (click to enlarge) Date 23 August – 26 September 1941 Location East and South of Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union Result German victory Belligerents Germany Soviet Union Commanders and leaders Gerd von Rundstedt Semyon Budyonny (Removed from duty on 13 September.) Mikhail Kirponos (Killed in action on 20 September. No commander after this.) Strength 500,000 627,000 Casualties and losses unknown 700,544 overall 616,304 dead or captured 84,240 wounded

The Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a very large encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev during World War II. It is considered the largest encirclement of troops in history. The operation ran from 23 August – 26 September 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa. In Soviet military history it is referred to as the Kiev Defensive Operation (Киевская оборонительная операция), with somewhat different dating of 7 July – 26 September 1941.

Nearly the entire Southwestern Front of the Red Army was encircled with the Germans claiming 665,000 captured. However, the Kiev encirclement was not complete, and small groups of Red Army troops managed to escape the cauldron days after the German pincers met east of the city, including head quarters of Marshall Semyon Budyonny, Marshall Semen Timoshenko and Commissar Nikita Khrushchev. The commander of the Southwestern Front—Mikhail Kirponos—was trapped behind enemy lines and killed while trying to break through. The Kiev disaster was an unprecedented defeat for the Red Army, exceeding even the Minsk tragedy of June–July 1941. On 1 September, the Southwestern Front numbered 752–760,000 troops (850,000 including reserves and rear service organs), 3,923 guns & mortars, 114 tanks and 167 combat aircraft.

The encirclement trapped 452,700 troops, 2,642 guns & mortars and 64 tanks, of which scarcely 15,000 escaped from the encirclement by 2 October. Overall, the Southwestern Front suffered 700,544 casualties, including 616,304 killed, captured, or missing during the month-long Battle for Kiev. As a result, four Soviet field armies (5th, 37th, 26th, and 21st) consisting of 43 divisions virtually ceased to exist. The 40th Army was badly affected as well. Like the Western Front before it, the Southwestern Front had to be recreated almost from scratch.

Prelude

After the initial success of the Wehrmacht in the Central sector of the Eastern front, a huge bulge in the south remained where a substantial Soviet force of nearly the entire Southwestern Front was located in and around Kiev. While lacking mobility and armor due to high losses in tanks at the Battle of Uman, they nonetheless posed a significant threat to the German advance and were the largest single concentration of Soviet troops on the Eastern Front at that time.

At the end of August, the German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH) had the option of either continuing the advance on Moscow, or putting that goal aside temporarily in favor of assisting the other two army groups (North and South) both of which lagged behind.

Because the German Army Group South (Heeresgruppe Süd) lacked sufficient strength to encircle and destroy Budyonny's forces, a significant contribution from Army Group Centre was sent to accomplish the task.

On August 3, Hitler temporarily cancelled the drive on Moscow in favor of driving south and attacking Kiev in the Ukraine.

The bulk of Panzergruppe 2 and the 2 Armee were detached from Army Group Centre and sent due south. It's mission was to encircle Budyonny's Southwestern Front in conjunction with Army Group South whose Panzergruppe 1 under Field Marshall Kleist had outflanked Kiev in a southeasternly direction.

Battle

107,540 Soviet personnel were awarded the medal for the defence of Kiev from 21st June 1941.

The Panzer armies made rapid progress. On September 12, Kleist's Panzergruppe 1, which had by now turned north and crossed the Dneiper River, emerged from its bridgeheads at Cherkassy and Kremenchug. Continuing north, it cut across the rear of Budyonny's forces. On September 16, it made contact with Guderian's Panzergruppe 2 advancing south at the town of Lokhvitsa, 120 miles behind Kiev. Budyonny was now trapped and soon relieved by Stalin's order of 13 September. No successor was named, leaving the troops to their individual corps and division commanders.

After that, the fate of the encircled Russian armies was sealed. With no mobile forces or supreme commander left, there was no possibility to effect a break out. The infantry of the German 17. Armee and 6. Armee of Army Group South soon arrived, along with 2nd Army (also on loan from Army Group Center and marching behind Guderian's tanks). They systematically began to reduce the pocket assisted by the two Panzer armies. The encircled Soviet armies at Kiev did not give up easily. A savage battle in which the Soviets were bombarded by artillery, tanks and aircraft had to be fought before the pocket was overcome. By 19 September, Kiev had fallen, but the encirclement battle continued. After 10 days of heavy fighting, the last remnants of troops east of Kiev surrendered on 26 September. The Germans claimed 600,000 Red Army soldiers captured, although these claims have included a large number of civilians suspected of evading capture. Hitler called it the greatest battle in history.

See also

• Battle of Uman
• Battle of Bialystok-Minsk
• Battle of Kiev (1943)

Further reading

• Clark, Alan (1965), Barbarossa, William Morrow and Company
• Erickson, John (1975), The Road to Stalingrad
• Glantz, David M. & House, Jonathan (1995), When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler, Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, ISBN 0-7006-0899-0
• Mellenthin, F.W. (1956), Panzer Battles, Konecky and Konecky
• Stahel, David (2012), Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1107014596