Battle of Kiev (1941)

After the rapid progress of Army Group Centre through the central sector of the Eastern Front, a huge salient developed around its junction with Army Group South by late July 1941. On 7–8 July 1941, the German forces managed to break through the fortified Stalin Line, in the southeast portion of Zhytomyr Oblast, which ran along the 1939 Soviet border.[6] By 11 July 1941, the Axis ground forces reached the Dnieper tributary Irpin River (15–20 km (9.3–12.4 mi) to the west of Kiev).[6] The initial attempt to enter the city was thwarted by troops of the Kiev ukrep-raion (KUR, Kiev fortified district) and the counteroffensive of the Soviet 5th and 6th armies.[6] The advance on Kiev was halted and the main German effort then shifted towards the Korosten ukrep-raion, where the Soviet 5th Army was concentrated.[6] At the same time, the 1st Panzer Army was forced to transition to defense due to a counteroffensive of the Soviet 26th Army.[6] A substantial Soviet force, nearly the entire Southwestern Front, was positioned in and around Kiev, in the salient.[7][8] By the end of July, the Soviet front lost some of its units due to the critical situation of the Southern Front (the 6th and 12th armies) caused by the German 17th army.[6]

While lacking mobility and armor, due to high losses in tanks at the Battle of Uman,[8] on 3 August 1941,[6] 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. Both the Soviet 6th and 12th armies were encircled at Uman, where some 102,000 Red Army soldiers and officers were taken prisoner.[6] On 30 July 1941, the German forces resumed their advance onto Kiev, with the German 6th army attacking positions between the Soviet 26th army and the Kiev ukrep-raion troops.[6]

On 7 August 1941, their advance was halted again by the Soviet 5th, 37th, and 26th armies, supported by the Pinsk Naval Flotilla.[6] With the help of the local population around the city of Kiev, anti-tanks ditches were dug and other obstacles were installed, including the establishment of 750 pillboxes and 100,000 mines planted along the 45 km (28 mi) frontline segment.[6] Some 35,000 soldiers were mobilized from local population along with some partisan detachments and two armored trains.[6]

On 19 July, Adolf Hitler had issued Directive No. 33, which cancelled the assault on Moscow in favor of driving south to complete the encirclement of Soviet forces surrounded in Kiev.[9] On 12 August 1941, Supplement to Directive No. 34 was issued. This directive represented a compromise between Hitler, who was convinced the correct strategy was to clear the salient occupied by Soviet forces on right flank of Army Group Center, in the vicinity of Kiev, before resuming the drive to Moscow, and Franz Halder, Fedor von Bock and Heinz Guderian, who advocated an advance on Moscow, as soon as possible. The compromise required 2nd and 3rd Panzer Groups of Army Group Centre, which were redeploying in order to aid Army Group North and Army Group South respectively, be returned to Army Group Centre, together with the 4th Panzer Group of Army Group North, once their objectives were achieved. Then the three Panzer Groups, under the control of Army Group Center, would lead the advance on Moscow.[10] Initially, Halder, chief of staff of the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), and Bock, commander of Army Group Center, were satisfied by the compromise, but soon their optimism faded as the operational realities of the plan proved too challenging.[11]

On 18 August, the OKH submitted a strategic survey (Denkschrift) to Hitler, regarding the continuation of operations in the East. The paper made the case for the drive to Moscow, arguing once again that Army Groups North and South were strong enough to accomplish their objectives without any assistance from Army Group Center. It pointed out that there was enough time left before winter to conduct only a single decisive operation against Moscow.[11]

On 20 August, Hitler rejected the proposal based on the idea that the most important objective was to deprive the Soviet Union of its industrial areas. On 21 August, Alfred Jodl of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) issued a directive, which summarized Hitler's instructions, to Walther von Brauchitsch, commander-in-chief of the Army. The paper reiterated that the capture of Moscow, before the onset of winter, was not a primary objective. Rather, that the most important missions before the onset of winter were to seize the Crimea, and the industrial and coal region of the Don River; isolate the oil-producing regions of the Caucasus from the rest of the Soviet Union, and in the north, to encircle Leningrad, and link up with the Finns. Among other instructions, it also instructed that Army Group Center is to allocate sufficient forces to ensure the destruction of the "Russian 5th Army" and, at the same time, to prepare to repel enemy counterattacks in the central sector of its front.[12] Hitler referred to the Soviet forces in the salient collectively as the "Russian 5th Army".[13] Halder was dismayed, and later described Hitler's plan as "utopian and unacceptable", concluding that the orders were contradictory and Hitler alone must bear the responsibility for inconsistency of his orders and that the OKH can no longer assume responsibility for what was occurring; however, Hitler's instructions still accurately reflected the original intent of the Barbarossa directive of which the OKH was aware all along.[14] Gerhard Engel, in his diary for 21 August 1941, simply summarized it as, "it was a black day for the Army".[15] Halder offered his own resignation and advised Brauchitsch to do the same. Brauchitsch declined, stating Hitler would not accept the gesture, and nothing would change anyhow.[14] Halder withdrew his offer of resignation.

On 23 August, Halder convened with Bock and Guderian, in Borisov, in Belorussia, and afterwards flew with Guderian to Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia. During a meeting between Guderian and Hitler, with neither Halder nor Brauchitsch present, Hitler allowed Guderian to make the case for advancing on to Moscow, and then rejected his argument. Hitler claimed his decision to secure the northern and southern sectors of western Soviet Union were "tasks which stripped the Moscow problem of much of its significance" and was "not a new proposition, but a fact I have clearly and unequivocally stated since the beginning of the operation." Hitler also argued that the situation was even more critical because the opportunity to encircle the Soviet forces in the salient was "an unexpected opportunity, and a reprieve from past failures to trap the Soviet armies in the south."[14] Hitler also declared, "the objections that time will be lost and the offensive on Moscow might be undertaken too late, or that the armoured units might no longer be technically able to fulfil their mission, are not valid." Hitler reiterated that once the flanks of Army Group Center were cleared, especially the salient in the south, then he would allow the army to resume its drive on Moscow; an offensive, he concluded, which "must not fail".[15] Guderian returned to the 2nd Panzer Group and began the southern thrust in an effort to encircle the Soviet forces in the salient.[14]

Men from a German forward detachment attack a Soviet village west of Kiev, in August 1941

The bulk of the 2nd Panzer Group and the 2nd Army were detached from Army Group Centre and sent south.[16] Its mission was to encircle the Southwestern Front, commanded by Semyon Budyonny, in conjunction with the 1st Panzer Group, of Army Group South, under Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, which was advancing from a southeasterly direction.[17]

Following the crossing of the Dnieper river by German forces on 22 August 1941, the city of Kiev came under threat of encirclement. The command of the Southwestern Front appealed to the Stavka to allow for a withdrawal of forces from Kiev.[6]

The Red Army Chief of Staff, Boris Shaposhnikov, wrote a letter to the Southwestern Front on September 17, authorising a withdraw from Kiev, when the encirclement was already completed at Lokhvytsia, in Poltava region.[6]