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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Defeat at the Dnepr: The XLVIII. Panzerkorps' Counterattack at Kiev, November 1943

Defeat at the Dnepr: The XLVIII. Panzerkorps' Counterattack at Kiev, November 1943

Waring, Simon

Hardcover

German History

Publisher Price: $39.95

ISBN10: 1636245048
ISBN13: 9781636245041
Publisher: Casemate
Published: Jul 9 2026
Pages: 448
Weight: 1.36
Height: 1.70 Width: 5.90 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
Drawing on an impressive body of primary sources, Waring's book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the desperate fighting of German army formations on the Eastern Front following the epic defeat at the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. A particularly interesting and instructive aspect is his analysis and critique of the often self-justifying post-war memoirs of former commanders on the Eastern Front. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in World War II or military history and strategy in general. -- Christer Bergström, author of Black Cross Red Star: Air War on the Eastern Front and Barbarossa: Hitler Versus Stalin

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.

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