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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 940
EAN num: 9781932033885
ISBN number: 1932033882
Label: Casemate
Manufacturer: Casemate
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: 2008-09
Publishing house: Casemate
Sale Popularity Level: 33898
Studio: Casemate
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During the second half of 1943, after the failure at Kursk, Germany's Army Group South fell back from Russia under repeated hammer blows from the Red Army. Under Erich von Manstein, however, the Germans were able to avoid serious defeats, while at the same time fending off Hitler's insane orders to hold on to useless territory.
Then, in January 1944, a disaster happened. Six divisions of Army Group South became surrounded after sudden attacks by the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts under command of generals Nikolai Vatutin and Ivan Konev around the village of Korsun (near the larger town of Cherkassy on the Dnieper). The Germans' greatest fear was the prospect of another Stalingrad, the catastrophe that had occurred precisely one year before.
This time, though, Manstein was in control from the start, and he immediately rearranged his Army Group to rescue his trapped divisions. A major panzer drive got underway, led by General der Panzertruppen Hans Hube, a survivor from Stalingrad pocket, which promptly ran up against several soviet tank armies. Leading the break-in was Franz Baeke with his Tiger and Panther-tanks. Due to both weather and ferocious resistance, the German drive stalled. Ju-52s still flew into Korsun's airfield, delivering supplies and taking out wounded, but it soon became apparent that only one option remained for the beleaguered defenders: breakout.
Without consulting Hitler, on the night of February 16 Manstein ordered the breakout to begin. Led by the strongest formation within the pocket, SS Wiking, the trapped forces surged out and soon rejoined the surrounding panzer divisions who had been fully engaged in weakening the ring.
When dawn broke, the Soviets realized their prey was escaping. Although the Germans within the pocket lost nearly all of their heavy weapons and left many wounded behind, their escape was effected. Stalin, having anticipated another Stalingrad, was left with little but an empty bag, as Army Group South-this time-had pulled off a rescue.
In The Korsun Pocket, Niklas Zetterling, a researcher at the Swedish Defense College since 1995 and Anders Frankson, have provided a highly detailed and often breathtaking account of one of the most dramatic battles of World War II. From grand strategy to soldiers' voices on the ground, including expert statistical analysis, the action, and the stakes, of the battle at Korsun are made vividly clear.
REVIEWS
'...compelling prose, abundant tactical detail, lots of maps, a clear narrative of events and running analysis of the battle as it unfolds. If you're hungering for a good WWII East Front battle book, look no further... It's very well done.' Magweb.com, 10/2008
'...provides a fascinating insight into a little known event within the vast Eastern front conflict... those who read this book will discover something they have not read about before.'Military Modeling.com, 11/2008
'..a story well told...maintains a level of observation at the human scale and is packed with detail...Highly recommended...'Play History, 11/2008
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Rated by buyers -
I feel that this is a very good work on the Korsun (also known as the Cherkassy) Pocket. Makes good use of archival sources to help understand the motivations and actions of commanders on both sides (author makes a correct observation that Soviet accounts must be viewed through a lens of propaganda). The first-person accounts are useful.
The author makes the reader aware of the the effects of weather and terrain on the course of the battle. The Russian mud bogs down movement to such an extent that reserves and reinforcements arrive late and understrength on both sides due to the effects of the strain it causes to man, animal, and machine.
The reason I gave it four instead of five stars was the clarity of the maps. I would read that a unit was moving from place "A" northward to place "B" when it was engaged in action with an enemy unit. I would then look on the map in that chapter and couldn't find place "A" or place "B"!
On the whole, I found this work to be a very good treatment on the subject.
Rated by buyers 
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A very good book on one of the lesser known battles of the Eastern Front during WW2. If you have any interest at all on the titanic struggle of the Eastern Front, I would highly recommend this book.
Rated by buyers -
The Soviet encirclement of the German XI and XXXXII Corps with about 59,000 troops in the Korsun Pocket in January 1944 and the desperate German effort to rescue this trapped force was one of the most dramatic - if not well-known - moments of the Second World War. It was an epic soldier's battle, fought in the mud and snow of the Ukraine and it is well-described in The Korsun Pocket, by Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson. As in previous books by Zetterling, the emphasis is on the German point of view, told mostly through the actual German official unit records of that time. This is a good approach and the authors embellish it with some personal memoirs, but the Soviet point of view is much less evident. Overall, this is a very good book on this subject but it has one major weakness that appears in the introduction when the authors write, "relatively little is written on the battle at Korsun. In English it is mentioned in several books, but rarely are more than a few pages devoted to it." In fact, the authors somehow managed to miss the existence of the superb Hell's Gate written by Douglas E Nash six years ago, which in many respects is actually better than this book. Nor does it appear that the authors utilized anything from David Glantz's prodigious Soviet research. The authors' arrogant assumption that there was little else available in English on this subject except for this book left me with a very bad taste in my mouth from the start.
In the opening chapters, the authors discuss the situation in the Ukraine in late 1943 after the Battle of Kursk and the German retreat to the Dnepr River. Some of this was a bit superficial and the authors demonstrate an overt pro-German bias that tends to minimize German defeats and focus on Soviet casualties. The fact that the Soviets bounced the Dnepr line in an amazing display of operational mobility and that the Germans were utterly unable to reduce any of the bridgeheads is conveniently ignored. The actual Soviet offensive in late January 1944 that encircles this last German force holding the Dnepr line is covered in chapters 6-8. Chapter 9 covers Soviet efforts to reduce the pocket but unlike Nash's book, there is much less information presented here about what was going on in the pocket. The bulk of chapters 10-17 cover the two main German relief efforts, which petered out just 7 kms short of achieving a link-up. As the authors repeat in virtually every sentence, the muddy ground conditions caused by a sudden thaw had a major impact on German mobility and their failure to reach the pocket. Soviet efforts to stop the German relief effort are described as fairly inept and the authors point to much heavier Soviet tank losses to suggest that Soviet defenses were less troublesome than the mud. Instead of bringing up the mud as a one-size-fits all excuse for anything the Germans failed to do, I would have preferred a dedicated chapter on the weather and terrain in the area, and some statistics that back up their assertions about the impact on German mobility (like how many trucks were lost). In the final section, the authors list that only 5 German tanks were lost due to miring, which does not seem as horrific as portrayed in the text. Sometimes the ignorance about the Soviet side of the hill is a bit annoying, such as missing the fact that IS-1 heavy tanks were used for the very first time.
The final breakout is covered rather quickly and with much less detail than in Nash's book (e.g. the death of General Stemmerman). Whereas Nash covers the massacre of the German support troops by Soviet cavalry and artillery, these authors seem to gloss over it very quickly. While the authors do regard Korsun as a Soviet victory, they claim that it was a much more expensive victory than it should have been due to heavy losses of men and material. However, this really isn't a fair conclusion, since while the Soviets suffered about 80,000 casualties and 850 tanks to inflict about 40,000 losses and 300 tanks on the Germans, they had far more residual capacity and most of the German forces were totally spent. Indeed, the encirclement of virtually the entire 1st Panzer Army the subsequent month was a direct result of the losses suffered at Korsun. After Korsun, the Germans were in retreat virtually all the time and it burnt-out the last effective panzer divisions.
The book consists of 19 chapters that cover the campaign in sequential order. There are two appendices, the very first provides the order of battle for both sides and the second provides detailed notes on each German division involved. As in previous Zetterling books, The Korsun Pocket is not particularly user-friendly, since despite the inclusion of numerous footnotes, there is no bibliography and only a 5-page index. The book has a total of 26 sketch maps, which are generally good but do not depict rail lines or some of the key hills mentioned in the text. Perhaps one of the best aspects of ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
Korsun Pocket was the last major hurrah of the German military during World War II along the eastern front before attrition, lack of manpower and supplies finally drew the curtain down on German Wehrmacht. For one last time, Germany was able to launched a major offensive to relieved the Korsun or Cherkassy Pocket and get the survivors out. It was Field Marshal Eric von Manstein's last victory and the last time Germany will score a victory of this size on the eastern front. (I would say this is a German victory because it wasn't a Soviet victory. Soviet's objective was to destroy the pocket while the German's objective was to rescue it. The Germans achieved their objective while the Soviets did not.)
The book proves to be well written and well researched. The authors definitely tried to give a balanced picture of the situation at hand and both the German and Soviet perception were well presented. The writing well reflects the harsh fighting between the two sides and conditions that they fought under. Its pretty obvious to anyone knowledgeable about the warfare along the Russian front that it easily dwarfed anything the western Allied forces on the Italian and western fronts had to endured. However, the authors made it clear that they preferred using the German sources more since it was more reliable compared to the Soviet sources that may be questionable at times. It could also be that there isn't much of the personal accounts from the Soviet sides as there are from the German side.
This was clearly a moral victory for the Germans but it was very Pyrrhic one at that. A lot of hard reserves were used up and this victory didn't changed the strategic situation along the eastern front. The effects were short term and the Soviet summer offensive of 1944 will clean the clocks off the Germans who really had nothing left after the winter of 1943-44.
Rated by buyers -
This is a good book, well written, and gives the reader a somewhat sanitized description of German pocket battles, the problems of relief, wandering the pocket to the West, and breakthrough to the relieving forces. The authors stopped their narrative following the breakthrough, but the troops experienced more tribulations and escapes afterwards from the Red Army before they were relatively safe. The research is excellent and the presentation of casualties and statistics from the German side is well done. The Soviet side is subject to some speculation, but Glantz and House reported 80,188 killed and wounded, and the tank losses are generally given as about 700.
The pocket was formed due to Hitler's intransigence towards retreating and his fantasy of maintaining the salient on the Dnieper River as a jumping-off place for an offensive. To the Soviets, the salient was ripe for being nipped off and the two corps of German troops contained therein to be annihilated. This was in January and February of 1944, rather late in the war, and German strength on the Eastern Front was stretched to the breaking point, but their superior tactics and unit cohesion could still punish incautious Soviet movements when allowed.
The Korsun or Cherkassey pocket was one such battle, where Field-Marshal Manstein committed himself to saving the encircled troops and generally fulfilled his promise. In doing so, however, he used up his armoured reserves, and after his sacking by Hitler after the Soviets pushed through to the Hungarian border, Army Groups Center and North could no longer win battles above the battalion level.
Both the Soviet and German troops fought bitterly. The Germans were fighting for their lives, and being wounded was nearly a death sentence. The Soviets massacred the German wounded they captured (along with the medical personnel), and only walking wounded able to cross the swollen and freezing Gnily Tikich (river) or those flown out earlier were saved.
The Germans that did escape generally did so without weapons, and in many cases without clothes having swum the river to safety. That the hardships were unbelievable goes without saying. On the Soviet side the elements breaking through to form the pocket were decimated by German attacks, and their situations were often as difficult as the Germans'.
At any rate, this work goes far to illustrate to the reader the conditions of battle on the Eastern Front from the Battle of Kursk to the assault on Berlin. Other pockets were wiped out by the Soviets, and the spectacle of troops returning through Soviet lines became commonplace on the Eastern Front.
I recommend this book, but would also recommend two other works to readers interested in this battle:
"Hell's Gate" by Donald Nash provides more photos, maps and 1st person accounts; and
"Campaign in Russia" by Leon Degrelle, a Belgian SS volunteer who commanded the Walloon brigade inside the Cherkassey pocket for more descriptive accounts of the fighting.
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