July 1942. One year after Hitler’s
invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans launch
a great offensive in southern Russia. Their goal is the Soviet oil
fields of the Caucasus. Originally produced
for Russian television in 2011, this is the story of Russia’s Great
Patriotic War and the Red Army’s long road from defeat to victory. In a guardhouse in southern Russia, two men in Red Army uniforms talked
casually to each other in German. A third man, wearing the uniform of a German
combat engineer, listened in closely. They were men of the Brandenburg Regiment —
an elite German special forces unit that often dressed in enemy
uniform to carry out its missions. They had just prevented Russian engineers
from destroying the dam on the River Manich. They thought the operation
had been successfully completed. But suddenly a stranger
appeared in the doorway. The unknown soldier blew up the Veselovskoye
Reservoir Dam on 27th July 1942. It caused a sudden and dramatic rise
in the water level down-river, and placed a major obstacle
in the path of the German advance. The River Manich had been transformed
from a 40 metre-wide river, to a huge lake, 4 kilometres across. German tanks, that would have
driven straight across the dam, now had to be ferried across
the lake one by one. It bought some much-needed time
for the retreating Red Army. But this was only a small, local victory.
Three days previously, Germans Army Group A had captured
Rostov-on-Don, the gateway to the Caucasus. The main German attack came from
that direction, further to the west. The only good news was that
the German Fourth Panzer Army would soon be redirected from the Caucasus
to support the attack on Stalingrad. The same day the dam was blown,
Stalin received a report from the Commander
of the North Caucasus Front, Marshal Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny.
He recommended an immediate withdrawal of his forces to the line of the Terek
river and the Caucasus Mountains. After recent Soviet defeats in the Crimea,
at Kharkov and in the Donbas, the Germans possessed
a significant numerical advantage over the Soviets in the Caucasus. Budyonny believed the only way
to stabilize the situation was an immediate withdrawal south. The next day, Stalin signed the famous
Order Number 227, "Not a Step Back!". At the same time, he approved
Budyonny’s plan of retreat. It seemed a contradiction.
But in the Caucasus, military logic dictated
just one course of action. The Terek River and the Caucasus Mountains
comprised a formidable natural defence. The troops would withdraw
to this line immediately, before the Germans could encircle
and destroy them. All Soviet reserves
were being sent to Stalingrad, where one of the decisive
battles of the war was unfolding. There were no troops to spare
for the North Caucasus Front. And so Budyonny’s troops
began to dig in along the Terek. The great German summer
offensive of 1942 was underway. Army Group B was advancing on Stalingrad,
from where it could protect the northern flank of Army Group A — bound
for the Soviet oil fields of the Caucasus. Before the war, 70% of all Soviet oil came
from the Baku oil fields of the Caucasus. About a quarter came from the area
around Grozny and Maykop. Their capture would be a disaster,
and leave the Red Army without fuel. Hitler believed the war would be decided
by the control of oil supplies. He was obsessed by oil, and had even
studied how it was drilled, and refined. As Case Blue began,
Army Group A breached Soviet defences and began a rapid advance
towards these vital oil fields. Von Kleist’s First Panzer Army led the way. In 1941, von Kleist had commanded
1st Panzer Group in Ukraine. In the first week of the war he had won
a giant four day tank battle at Brody. Now he had been entrusted with
the capture of the Caucasus oil fields. Marshal Budyonny, by contrast,
had experienced only defeat. Now he oversaw his forces’ retreat
to the mountains. The Caucasus Mountains stretched 1,300 km
from the Caspian to the Black Sea. The range is divided into three parts. The Eastern Caucasus runs from
the Absheron peninsula to Mount Kazbek; The Central Caucasus
from Kazbek to Mount Elbrus, and the Western Caucasus
from Elbrus to Anapa. Snow and ice cover the highest peaks
all year round, and to reach Grozny, one must also cross
the fast-flowing Terek River. Von Kleist planned to advance
straight to Ordzhonikidze, and follow the old Georgian
Military road straight to Tbilisi. He would ignore the mountain
passes of the Western Caucasus, in order to concentrate his forces. But Hitler rejected this plan, and the 49th Mountain Corps
was diverted to the Western Caucasus. Hitler was adding another objective
to Army Group A’s ambitious list of goals. He now also demanded that it capture the
Soviet naval bases on the Black Sea coast. Budyonny had very
few tanks at his disposal. But because of his static positions, he
did have the advantage in heavy artillery. He was also supported
by powerful air units. The summer of 1942 saw an important change in the organization
of the Red Army Air Force. Air armies were now assigned
to Red Army fronts. It was a similar system to the one
used by the Luftwaffe. It meant air force command was now more
centralized, allowing concerted action. Previously, Soviet air units
had been parceled out into small ineffective formations. Soviet air strength in the Caucasus comprised the naval aviation
of the Black Sea Fleet, 5th Air Army under
Lieutenant General Goryunov, and 4th Air Army
under Major General Vershinin. Konstantin Andreevich Vershinin
began his military career in the infantry, during the Russian Civil War. He only learned to fly in his thirties after
he was transferred to the Air Force Academy. Initially he wasn’t enthusiastic
about the air force. But his infantry background
helped him to appreciate how air power could be used
to support ground troops. In August 1942, the survival of Budyonny’s
Front depended on Vershinin’s pilots. They constantly harried the advancing
German columns with bombs and rockets. The air force was also the eyes
of the retreating Red Army. Reconnaissance aircraft tracked the southern
progress of von Kleist’s Panzer Army. Following in the footsteps
of the retreating Soviet troops, came soldiers of the German 1st
and 4th Mountain Divisions. These men were mountain warfare specialist from the Austrian Tyrol
and the Bavarian Alps. They travelled with climbing gear,
pack animals and specialized equipment, including lightweight artillery
that could be disassembled, and carried in sections
on the backs of mules. The mountain infantry
were ordered to fight their way through the mountains passes west
of Elbrus, and advance on Tbilisi. They only had a few weeks
to get through the mountains before winter weather made them impassable. If they did break through,
here and to the west, they could also capture the last Soviet
naval bases on the Black Sea. The local Soviet commanders believed the
mountains posed such a formidable obstacle, that the passes only needed to be held
by small detachments. But they had not counted on the expertise
of the German mountain divisions… The German mountain troops
began their advance through the Western Caucasus
Mountains on 15th August. They planned a bold flanking
movement of the Klukhov pass. Two squads armed with machine guns
and mortars climbed for hours. The Soviet defenders suddenly
found the enemy was behind them. Poor communications added to the crisis. Soviet Headquarters only found out about
the battle two days after it happened. Reserves were immediately sent in, including NKVD troops and cadets
from the Sukhumi Military Academy. The Stavka High Command
radioed an urgent warning: “The enemy has specially trained
mountain troops, and will use every road and path in the Caucasus mountains
to reach the South Caucasus. Commanders who believe the mountains
to be an impassable obstacle are gravely mistaken. Only a skillfully-prepared
and well-defended line is impassable”. But the warning had come too late
for the defenders of the Klukhov pass. Soviet reserves reached the Klukhov
pass a week after the initial attack. By then the Germans were already
on the southern slopes. Though they were prevented from advancing
any further, they could not be dislodged. The Germans meanwhile had sent
a detachment to Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in the Caucasus. On 18th August they reached
"The Refuge of 11" tourist camp. At 4,130 metres above sea level, The Refuge of 11 has been described
as the highest hotel in the world. The first wooden shelter
was erected in 1932. Six years later, a three-story shelter,
coated in metal and resembling an airship, was built in its place. From this shelter,
the Germans set off for the summit. On 21st August, soldiers
of the German 1st Mountain Division raised the Swastika flag over Mount Elbrus,
the highest mountain in Europe. It was a propaganda triumph,
though Hitler himself was said to have been furious
at what he regarded as a mere stunt. Meanwhile in Moscow, events in the Caucasus
were causing serious alarm. The feared head of the NKVD
secret police Lavrenty Beria flew personally to Sukhumi —
his hometown — and sacked the Commander
of the 46th Army General Sergatskov. In the eastern Caucasus,
von Kleist’s 1st Panzer Army had secured a toehold
across the Terek River. But they encountered fierce
resistance from Soviet units, which contained many local men who knew
the mountains like the back of their hand. Artillery observers on the high ground were
able to direct accurate fire from Katyushas and howitzers onto German
pontoons across the Terek. The Germans were also confronted
with a novel form of anti-tank barrier. Soviet soldiers filled ditches with oil,
then set fire to them with flamethrowers. It created an impenetrable wall of fire,
and thick, noxious black smoke. Villages around Malgobek
changed hands several times. It was not until the Germans secretly
moved the 13th Panzer Division south across the Terek that they
were able to secure the area. They were reinforced
by the SS Motorized Division "Viking". On 27th September,
the Germans captured Elkhotovo, but were forced back onto
the defensive the next day. Meanwhile Luftwaffe units in the
Caucasus had been sent north to Stalingrad, giving the Soviet Air Force a free hand. Vershinin’s aircraft targeted the German
pontoon bridges across the Terek. Vershinin always emphasized to his men the
importance of supporting the ground forces. “We exist for them,” he told his pilots,
“not the other way around”. It was difficult to get tanks from factories
in Russia to the troops in the Caucasus. But an Allied lend-lease supply route
came up through the Caucasus from Iran. As a result, many Soviet tanks on this
front were British and American models. By October 1942, the Caucasus
Front had a total of 300 tanks. British and American types made up 42%. T-34 medium tanks made up 20%
and heavy KV tanks just 2%. The remaining 36% were
various types of Soviet light tank. The American M3 Stuart
and the British Valentine were inferior to the T-34
and most German tanks. But they were an improvement
on the Soviet light tanks, such as the T-26 and the BT-7, which were
poorly armoured, and seriously undergunned. Vershinin’s 4th Air Army
also received Lend Lease equipment. Its pilots were among the first to master
the American twin-engined Boston bomber. They particularly liked its navigational
instruments, which made it safer than most aircraft to fly through
the mountains in unpredictable weather. Another aircraft that thrived in the
mountains was the I-153 Seagull biplane. Low speeds and superb maneuverability made it an effective fighter-bomber
amid the ravines and passes. Rocket-attacks by low-flying
seagulls were a common sight in these high-altitude battles. On the ground, special NKVD units
with alpine training were formed. They carried the fight back to the Germans,
with their own deep, outflanking maneuvers. Their gear was a strange mix
of pre-war sportswear, military uniform and captured German kit. Painstaking reconnaissance was
the bedrock of these units’ operations. In early September, one of these units
was able to turn the tables on the Germans in the Klukhov pass,
the scene of their earlier defeat. Soviet mountain troops spotted
a long caravan of German soldiers and pack animals heading up to the pass. They were a long way off –
beyond rifle range. Just then three aircraft marked
with the Red Star zoomed overhead. Gusev, a section commander of engineers,
described what happened: “Our pilots weren’t only skilled,
they also knew the mountains. First they attacked the convoy itself,
but the results weren’t great. So then they bombed
the slopes above the road. Huge chunks of stone fell right
on top of Hitler’s convoy. The slope disappeared in a thick
cloud of dust, and when it cleared, we saw the convoy had been devastated.” By September 1942, a stalemate had been reached
in the mountain passes of the Caucasus. German mountain infantry
couldn’t build on their initial success and break through to the coast. But nor were Soviet forces strong enough to recapture the high passes
they’d lost in August. On 28th September, one of the most unusual
battles of the Second World War took place, at more than 4,000 metres above sea level. The Soviets had formed a special
NKVD detachment, about 100 strong, to recapture the "Refuge of the 11",
near the summit of Mount Elbrus. They were led by Lieutenant Grigoryants, and armed with machineguns,
mortars, and sniper rifles. The German mountain troops were stunned
by the audacity of the Soviet attack. But they quickly rallied. Machinegun fire echoed across
the mountains for several hours. Slowly, the tide of battle turned against
Lieutenant Grigoryants and his men. Only 4 men from his detachment
made it back alive. The Lieutenant’s body was one of many
that littered the mountain slope. A few days later, the temperature
in the mountains plummeted. Soon both sides were losing more
men to frostbite and avalanches than they were from combat. It was
impossible to fight in such conditions. There would be no German
breakthrough in the mountains in 1942. In the Caucasus, the Germans found
some support from nationalists and anti-Communists
amongst the local population. The strong history of nationalism
in the Caucasus made it fertile recruiting ground
for the Wehrmacht. They had captured many conscripts
from Georgia, Chechnya, Armenia and Azerbaijan, some of whom were
prepared to fight against the Soviet Union. They were formed
into the so-called Eastern Legions. But many of these units turned out
to be deeply unreliable. In October, the 23rd
Panzer Division was informed that a battalion of Georgian volunteers
planned to go over to the Soviet side. The Germans immediately
made arrangements to disarm the unit and take if off the front line. But after a shoot-out with the Germans, some of the Georgians did manage
to slip over to the Soviet lines. The German bridgehead
across the Terek River was of continuing concern
to the Soviet Front Command. In November it was decided
to eliminate this foothold with an overwhelming infantry
and tank assault. But before it could begin, von Kleist, using the last of his fuel and ammunition
reserves, launched his own assault. He had decided to try and fight his way
through to Ordzhonikidze along a new route, which lay through
the towns of Baksan and Nalchick. Tanks of the 1st Panzer Army, supported
by air strikes, made a rapid advance. The Germans, it seemed,
had rediscovered the blitzkrieg spirit. Soon they had reached
the outskirts of Ordzhonikidze. But their success was short-lived. Forces from the South Caucasus front
were sent to crush the Terek bridgehead. Two German Panzer divisions were
surrounded near the village of Gizel. The Germans were forced to abandon
their vehicles and heavy weapons, and fight their way out on foot. For the Germans, reaching Tbilisi
was now out of the question. In 2007, President Putin would
award both Malgobeck and Ordzhonikidze — today known as Vladikavkaz —
the title "City of Military Glory", for their wartime heroism. In November the encirclement of 6th Army at Stalingrad turned
the campaign on its head. If the Germans did not immediately
evacuate the Caucasus, the Red Army might reach Rostov,
and cut off the entire Army Group A. On 22nd November, von Kleist was promoted
to command of Army Group A. He immediately ordered the 1st Panzer
Army to withdraw to Rostov, while 17th Army retreated
to the Kuban Bridgehead. The only way to keep the Kuban
Bridgehead supplied was by air. It would have been impossible if 6th Army
had still been holding out at Stalingrad. But its surrender freed up enough
Luftwaffe transport aircraft to establish an air bridge to Kuban. On 13th March,
Army Group A received new orders from the Army High Command – hold the Kuban
Bridgehead and the Crimea at all costs. Von Kleist made his own report
to the Army High Command about the value of the Kuban Bridgehead:
“Advantages of the position: a considerable number
of Russian forces it tied up; the enemy Black Sea Fleet is unable
to conducting defence operations; the defence of the Crimea is facilitated.” In the spring of 1943,
most of the Eastern Front was quiet, as both sides geared up
for the Battle of Kursk. But at Kuban the fighting rumbled on. Vershinin ordered the construction of an
air force command post near the front line. The battlefield was small here. Air raids and fighter patrols
could be observed from the ground, and information relayed
back to the squadrons. Dogfights above the Kuban Bridgehead frequently involved
30 to 40 aircraft on each side. Vershinin had demanded that his
fighters keep enemy bombers away from their infantry lines at all costs. The air battle over Kuban became one
of the most famous of the Eastern Front. Under unrelenting pressure
from the Red Army, the Kuban Bridgehead finally
began to buckle in August 1943. The Germans were outflanked
by Soviet advances to the north, and by amphibious landings at Novorossiysk. In October the 17th Army
was evacuated to the Crimea. Hitler’s quest for oil
had proved to be a disaster. A Soviet artillery officer studied enemy
positions on the Perekop Isthmus – the gateway to the Crimea. He was looking for targets
for the 280 millimetre mortars. Their 200 kilogram shells could smash
through the thickest walls. Preparations for the Crimea
offensive were underway. The Red army’s advance through Ukraine had isolated German
and Romanian forces in the peninsula. But only three narrow strips of land
connect the Crimea to the mainland. At Perekop, the isthmus
is just 14 kilometres wide. There would be no room to maneuver. German and Romanian troops of the 17th Army had had 5 months to fortify
the Perekop Isthmus. Machine gun crews stood ready
to mow down advancing Soviet infantry. Howitzers were hidden in the valleys. Romanian dictator Marshal Antonescu
wanted Hitler to evacuate the Crimea, where 7 Romanian divisions were stationed. But the Fuehrer feared the Soviets
would use Crimean airfields to bomb Romanian oil fields. Germany’s chrome supplies
from Turkey would also be threatened. Admiral Doenitz
assured Hitler that, if required, the navy could evacuate 17th Army by sea. But he was counting on the Germans
holding on to the port of Odessa. And on 10th April 1944,
Odessa fell to the Red Army. Ten days earlier, Hitler had fired
von Kleist from command of Army Group A. His replacement was Colonel
General Ferdinand Schörner. After arriving in the Crimea,
Schörner reported back to Hitler, telling him the situation was stable, and
the Crimea could hold out for many months. On 8th April 1944, at Perekop, Sivash and
Kerch, the Soviet guns roared into life. Timber gun emplacements
were turned into matchwood. Buildings were reduced to rubble. Finally uniformed men sprang up
from the Red Army trenches. Shouts of "Ura!", the Russian
battle cry, could be heard, and the squeal of tank tracks. The Germans raced from their dugouts
to their fighting positions. Concealed guns opened fire.
It was an old trick. A Soviet forward artillery observer
was meticulously noting the muzzle flashes, and sending their co-ordinates
back to the batteries by telephone. Soviet artillery pummelled
the German positions that had just given themselves away. The dummies were cut to ribbons.
But they had served their purpose. Now the soldiers took them down,
and prepared for the real attack. They were supported by T-34s
of the 2nd Guards Army. Amongst them, the feared
OT-34 flamethrower tanks. The Red Army onslaught proved irresistible. The assault was supported
by amphibious landings that outflanked the German
defences at Perekop. The Commander of the 17th Army, General
Jaenecke, received permission to retreat. The Germans began a swift
withdrawal towards Sevastopol, where Hitler expected them
to hold out for many months — as the Soviets had in 1942. The evacuation of German
and Romanian troops from Sevastopol began. The transports would be highly exposed. But after losing a battleship and two
destroyers to airattack the previous year, the Stavka ordered the big ships
of the Black Sea Fleet to stay out of range of the Luftwaffe. Soviet submarines
had also suffered heavy losses. It would primarily fall to the air force
to prevent the evacuation. By 1944, navy pilots of the Black Sea Fleet had mastered a lethal new form of attack.
It was known as skip-bombing. Skip-bombing attacks had to be made
at high speed and low altitude. When the bomb was released, it would skip
like a pebble across the surface of a lake, and strike the side of the ship.
Meanwhile the pilot climbed hard to avoid the ship’s superstructure. Skip-bombing had several advantages
over aerial torpedo attacks. Firstly, it was effective against ships with
very shallow drafts, like landing craft. Secondly, a ship could spot a torpedo
and dodge it with evasive action… but the bomb was on them in just seconds. Thirdly, torpedoes were expensive
and in high demand. By comparison,
bombs were plentiful and cheap. Boston bombers proved
the most effective skip-bombers, but the new tactic was also successfully
employed by Lavochkin-5 fighters, Ilyushin 2s and Ilyushin 4s. Units of the 4th Ukrainian Front pursued
the enemy to the gates of Sevastopol. The heavy artillery was brought up
in preparation for a long siege. On 5th May 1944, after a 90 minute barrage,
the Soviet infantry began their assault. In 1941 the Red Army had held Sevastopol
for 9 months against the Germans. But this time, it would not be such
a drawn-out affair. Sevastopol’s Northern Shore
fell to the Red Army within three days, putting the harbour
in range of Soviet artillery. German ships arriving
from the Romanian port of Constanta had to run a gauntlet of air attacks,
and shelling at the landings stages. Admiral Oktyabryski,
Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, requested permission to send his cruisers to
attack the German and Romanian transports. But the Stavka refused. The big warships
were not to be exposed to air attack. This was a job for the submarines,
and the air force. In the small hours of 10th May, the German transport ships Totila
and Teja arrived off Sevastopol. It was too dangerous
for them to approach the harbour so the ships anchored two miles off-shore,
while 10,000 soldiers were ferried out to them in assault boats
from the southwestern docks of Chersonese. As the embarkation was underway, more than twenty Ilyushin 2 Shturmoviks
appeared overhead. The Totila was hit by three bombs
and sank in minutes. The second transport, Teja, weighed anchor
and headed for the open sea. But the Soviet air force
soon caught up with her. The Teja was hit by no fewer
than six 100 kilogram bombs. She lost steering and engine power, before eleven Boston bombers
arrived to finish her off. Two bombs hit the Teja near the water line.
These were the fatal blows. The loss of both transports
cost up to 8,000 lives. These were by far the greatest
losses of the evacuation. In all about two-thirds
of 17th Army were evacuated, including its commander
General Allmendinger, who reached Constanta by torpedo boat
on the night of the 11th. General Hartmann was left
in charge at Sevastopol. But without heavy weapons, there was no chance of holding off
the Red Army for more than a few hours. The remnants of 17th Army were
overrun the next day, 12th May 1944. British war correspondent Alexander Werth visited Sevastopol
when the fighting was over: “Around Chersonese it was gruesome.
All the area in front of the earthworks and beyond was ploughed up
by thousands of shells, and scorched by the fire of Katyushas. The ground was littered
with thousands of German helmets, rifles, bayonets, and other arms and ammunition. Nearly all the dead had been buried,
but around the shattered lighthouse dead Germans and rafts
were bobbing in the water. “ The German 17th Army had been
effectively destroyed in the Crimea. In the month-long campaign, it had suffered
nearly 70,000 men killed or captured. Soviet dead and captured
totaled approximately 18,000. The Wehrmacht was suffering a series of
devastating defeats on the Eastern front. After his dismissal by Hitler, Field Marshal
von Kleist went into enforced retirement. At the end of the war,
he was arrested by the Americans and later extradited to Yugoslavia. There he was sentenced
to 15 years for war crimes. But he was also wanted in the Soviet Union, and in 1948, Marshal Tito agreed
to extradite von Kleist to the USSR. In 1952, the Military Collegium
of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to 25 years. Von Kleist died in a Soviet P.O.W. camp
from ill health two years later. After the liberation of the Crimea,
the 4th Air Army was sent to Byelorussia. There, its squadrons
would support Operation Bagration, as the war in the east turned
decisively against Nazi Germany. They would pursue the Wehrmacht
across the battlefields of East Prussia and Pomerania,
and on to the very streets of Berlin.
