Korsun Pocket

The Encirclement and Breakout of a German Army in the East, 1944

De: Niklas Zetterling, Anders Frankson

Narrado por: Dick Hill

During the second half of 1943, after the failure at Kursk, Germany’s Army Group South fell back from Russia under repeated hammer blows from the Red Army. Under Erich von Manstein, however, the Germans were able to avoid serious defeats, while at the same time fending off Hitler’s insane orders to hold on to useless territory.

Then, in January 1944, a disaster happened. Six divisions of Army Group South became surrounded after sudden attacks by the first and second Ukrainian Fronts under command of generals Nikolai Vatutin and Ivan Konev around the village of Korsun (near the larger town of Cherkassy on the Dnieper). The Germans’ greatest fear was the prospect of another Stalingrad, the catastrophe that had occurred precisely one year before.

This time, though, Manstein was in control from the start, and he immediately rearranged his Army Group to rescue his trapped divisions. A major panzer drive got underway, led by General der Panzertruppen Hans Hube, a survivor from Stalingrad pocket, which promptly ran up against several soviet tank armies. Leading the break-in was Franz Baeke with his Tiger and Panther-tanks. Due to both weather and ferocious resistance, the German drive stalled. Ju-52s still flew into Korsun’s airfield, delivering supplies and taking out wounded, but it soon became apparent that only one option remained for the beleaguered defenders: breakout.

Without consulting Hitler, on the night of February 16, Manstein ordered the breakout to begin. Led by the strongest formation within the pocket, SS Wiking, the trapped forces surged out and soon rejoined the surrounding panzer divisions who had been fully engaged in weakening the ring.

When dawn broke, the Soviets realized their prey was escaping. Although the Germans within the pocket lost nearly all of their heavy weapons and left many wounded behind, their escape was effected. Stalin, having anticipated another Stalingrad, was left with little but an empty bag, as Army Group South - this time - had pulled off a rescue. In The Korsun Pocket, Niklas Zetterling - a researcher at the Swedish Defense College since 1995 - and Anders Frankson have provided a highly detailed and often breathtaking account of one of the most dramatic battles of World War II. From grand strategy to soldiers’ voices on the ground, including expert statistical analysis, the action, and the stakes, of the battle at Korsun are made vividly clear.

©2008 Niklas Zetterling & Anders Frankson (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

I love this book

so well done. great stats, stories within the story. personal info on generals to soldiers.

Dry as a whale bone in the Sahara.

Would you try another book from Niklas Zetterling and Anders Frankson and/or Dick Hill?

Maybe....

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Dick Hill?

John FitzGibbon would have been much better. The narrator seemed to be constantly running out of breath and he stumbled a great deal with the names of places, people, and even vehicles. It was hard to remain interested when the narrator sounds like he has just finished climbing a dozen flights of stairs before the reading.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes indeed.

Well done

Interesting topic. The description of the senior commanders deciding to leave behind the wounded was gripping.

Sometimes struggled to follow without a map. I found a map of the pocket on the interest and got a sense of the relative location of various villages.

Narrator sounds like he’s on life support.

Narration is painfully slow. Falling asleep listening to this otherwise okay book. Will read a paper copy to finish.

A wonderful historical narative

Any additional comments?

As a historian and a professional soldier I found this book to be fascinating on so many levels. It could have been written by a general of WWII. It has depth, strategic insight and explanation and a cold calculated analysis of why it all went so wrong so fast for the German Army. Well recommended.

needs auxiliary media

Hard to follow with no map. Audible needs to figure out how to have maps come up on the media player to facilitate the story.