Kharkov: Fifth Time’s a Charm

If ever there was a city that experienced the changing fortunes of warfare, it is Kharkov.  Today, it’s the second largest city in the Ukraine.  During the Second World War, it was a Soviet-German battleground no less than 5 times.

In 1941, it was captured in late October by the Wehrmacht in that early onslaught we remember so well.  In April of 1942, the Soviet Army (as part of their successful winter offensive) established a beachhead on the west side of the Donets River near Izyum and prepared an attempt to recapture  would launch an attack against Kharkov.  This attack, launched in May, ended in disaster as Friedrich Paulus’ forces surrounded the attackers and the Soviets lost a quarter of a million men in roughly two weeks.

When Stalingrad fell from Germany’s grasp in early 1943, the Soviets used that victory as a springboard and continued westward from the Volga, recapturing Kharkov in February.  And then Erich Von Manstein’s Panzers would again smash against the city, retaking it just a month later.

If you’re getting the idea that living as a citizen in the Kharkov between 1941 and 1943 warranted “hazardous-duty” pay, you’re not far from the truth.

But war would come to the city one last time.  When the Germans launched Operation Citadel in July of 1943, they did so believing they could encircle, trap, and wipe out large numbers of Soviet forces around the city of Kursk.  They were wrong.  The Soviet tactic of layering their defenses served to wear down the German attackers to the point that Citadel had to be cancelled.  But the Soviets didn’t cancel anything this time.

The Soviets quickly took the offensive and began pushing the Germans back to the west.  And as July rolled into August, Kharkov was again the center of attention.  Though facing a tenacious opponent, the Soviet armies were the stronger at this point, and Kharkov fell, this time for the last time, to the home team on August 23, 1943.