The Battle of Korsun-Cherkassy — The Encirclement and Breakout of Army Group South, 1944

By Nikolaus Von Vormanntranslated by Geoffrey BrooksHardcover, 90 pp., 2018 In 1943 the tide began to turn against Germany on the Eastern Front. Their summer offensive, Operation Citadel, was a failure and the Red Army seized the initiative, despite appallingly high losses. Waging a war of attrition, the Russians gradually pushed Germany’s Army Group South back. By October 1943 the Russians had reached the Dnepr in Ukraine, Kiev was liberated, and the scene was set for the events described in this book, written by a high-ranking General Nikolaus von Vormann, who commanded XLVII. Panzerkorps. The battle of Cherkassy is also known as the Korsun Pocket, Korsun being the small town at the center of the area containing the surrounded German forces. After sudden attacks by the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, in January 1944 the Russians achieved a major encirclement of six German divisions, a total of 60,000 soldiers. The Red Army had the numerical advantage, but two of the Panzer divisions w