Battle of Kharkiv History Tour
During the Second World War, or the “Great Patriotic War” as it is often called in Ukraine, the Kharkiv region was the site of four historical battles. As a result of the battles, Kharkiv’s population has plummeted from over 900,000 to less than 200.000 and left the city in ruins. Dozens of architectural monuments were destroyed and, as one of the Soviet Unions’s best known authors, Aleksey Tolstoy wrote: “I saw Kharkiv. As if it were Rome in the 5th century. A huge cemetery…”
Our day WWII History tour is dedicated to the tragic and legendary battles of the Second World War and, in general, the history of the Kharkiv region during the dark years of German invasion.
You’ll learn how and when WWII came to Kharkiv and how the city survived during the 1st occupation. We pay our respect to the victims of Drobytsky Yar where Nazi troops began killing local residents just weeks after the 1st battle of Kharkiv. After taking a road that thousands of Kharkiv Jews took their last steps along in 1941/1942, we light a candle at the underground memorial with the names of 4,300 of the 16,000 victims etched on a wall.
When visiting the sites of the 2nd and 3rd Battles of Kharkiv you’ll hear about how Nazi Germany set deadly traps for the Red Army, pushing to liberate Kharkiv in May of 1942 and March of 1943. We get on top of the Kremyanetz Hill memorial complex and visit the WWII Museum in Sokolovo with its powerful diorama “March 8, 1943 fight in the village of Sokolovo” telling a tragic story of the first battle Czechoslovak volunteers fought against the Nazi troops. We visit graves of those heroes and walk the alleys of the Park of Friendship, ending the tribute with the 14-meter monument “Brotherhood in Arms”.
Finally, we visit Height 193.7 where on the 22nd of August 1943 the commander of the Steppe Front, Lieutenant-General Konev ordered to storm Kharkiv at the end of the 4th and final battle of Kharkiv. Right at the summit of the hill, we explore the newly upgraded memorial complex “The height of Marshal Konev” with a unique underground museum that teaches you the social history of war, gives you a glimpse of everyday life under occupation, and shocks you with brutal documented facts of the Nazis repression.
And while getting deeper and deeper inside the hill following steps of the underground Museum “Kharkiv during the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945” we again and again relive the history of 4 battles of Kharkiv…
…Although the main objectives of the German Army before winter 1941/42 were to capture Leningrad, Moscow and the approaches to the Caucasian oilfields, Kharkiv was an important secondary objective, as it was one of the largest industrial centers of the Soviet Union. Also, Kharkiv was a major railroad hub and losing the city meant that Soviet’s Southwestern and Southern Front had to fall back on Voronezh and Stalingrad as their major transport hubs. All those factors, plus the need to protect the flanks of its motorized spearheads, made Hitler to allocate resources from the 17th Army to the 6th Army to ensure the capture of Kharkiv by the beginning of winter 1941. Even though that Soviet 216th Rifle Division had been ordered to protect the city, but with little or no support from other divisions, it could only slow down approaching German Army to gain some time needed for dismantling and evacuating crucial equipment of Kharkiv’s main factories, such as the Kharkiv Aircraft Plant, Kharkiv Plant of the NKVD (FED), the Kharkiv Turbine Plant and, most importantly, the Kharkiv Tractor Factor that produced the most powerful Soviet tank T-34. By the 20th of October when the Germans reached the western edge of the city, evacuation of 70 major factories was almost completed, but that could not be said about the local population including thousands of Jews, who became the first civilian victims after Kharkiv was taken by von Reichenau’s 6th Army on 24 October 1941. Almost all of 20.000 Jews who could not leave Kharkiv were executed by Germans during the first occupation which lasted until 16 February 1943. By January 1942 around one-third of the city’s 300,000 remaining inhabitants suffered from starvation. Many would die in the cold winter months.
The Second Battle of Kharkiv happened in May of 1942 when Soviet forces attempted to retake the city. The Kharkiv offensive was a new Soviet attempt to expand upon their strategic initiative, after a winter counter-offensive drove German troops away from Moscow. After a promising start on 12 May 1942 with a dual pincer movement from the Vovchansk and Barvenkovo salient, by 14 May the Red Army had made impressive gains, retaking areas just 19 kilometres from Kharkiv. But due to many critical Soviet errors and a massive German campaign of airstrikes, the offensive was stopped on 15 May, and 2 days later a German pincer attack cut off three Soviet field armies from the rest of the front. By the end of May 24, Soviet forces opposite Kharkiv had been surrounded by German formations. Hemmed into a narrow area, the 250,000-strong Soviet force inside the pocket was exterminated from all sides by German armored, artillery and machine gun firepower as well as 7,700 tonnes of air-dropped bombs. After six days of encirclement, organized Soviet resistance came to an end as the Soviet formations were either killed or taken prisoner. The battle was an overwhelming German victory, with 280,000 Soviet casualties compared to just 20,000 for the Germans and their allies. The Second Battle of Kharkiv is know as a major Soviet setback that put an end to the successes of the Red Army during the winter counteroffensive.
As the German Sixth Army was encircled in Stalingrad, the Red Army undertook a series of wider attacks against the rest of Army Group South and between January and early February 1943 Soviet forces broke German defenses and, despite Hitler’s orders to hold the city, Kharkiv was abandoned by German forces and the city was recaptured by the Red Army on 16 February. The Soviet victories caused participating Soviet units to over-extend themselves and on 19 February, German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein launched Kharkiv counterstrike, using the fresh II SS Panzer Corps and two panzer armies. The Wehrmacht flanked, encircled, and defeated the Red Army’s armored spearheads south of Kharkiv. This enabled Manstein to renew his offensive against the city and after 4 days of house-to-house fighting Kharkiv was recaptured by the 1st SS Panzer Division on 15 March. The military historian Bevin Alexander wrote that the Third Battle of Kharkiv was “the last great victory of German arms in the eastern front”
Belgorod-Kharkov Offensive Operation, also known as Fourth Battle of Kharkov, began in the early hours of 3 August 1943, with an objective of recapturing Belgorod and Kharkiv, and destroying the German forces of the 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf. On August 12, following breakthroughs by the 57th and 69th Soviet Armies in several sectors of the front-line, General Werner Kempf sent a request to abandon Kharkiv. Adolf Hitler countered the request with an order that the city had to be held “under all circumstances”. After a prediction that the order to hold Kharkiv would produce “another Stalingrad”, on 14 August 1943 Manstein relieved Kempf and appointed General Otto Wöhler in his place. Anyway, in the morning of August 22 under a heavy pressure from the Soviets the Germans began their retreat to the south. After dark, the 89th Guards and 107th Rifle Divisions broke into the interior of the city, driving the last German rearguard detachments before them. Enormous fires were set by the Germans, hoping to delay the Soviet advance. The city became a hellish place of fire and smoke, artillery fire and desperate combat, punctuated by the explosions of supply dumps. By 11:00 on August 23, Kharkov and its outskirts had been taken completely. The fourth and final battle for the city was over. After 641 days of occupation Kharkiv was finally liberated from Nazi-occupation.
Highlights:
1. Marshal Konev Height Memorial
Built at the summit of a small hill near Solonitsivka village, the ‘Marshal Konev Height’ Memorial and ‘Kharkiv Region in the Great Patriotic War (WWII) of 1941–1945’ Museum are constant reminders about bloody battles of WWII that took place in Kharkiv region in 1942-1943 and laid the foundation for the liberation of all of Ukraine.... 2. Sokolovo Battle Museum
Sokolovo Museum of Military Brotherhood was opened in honor of memorable battles in the village of Sokolovo, where for the first time, Czechoslovak units fought against the Nazi troops. The museum’s main exposition is devoted to the events of March 8-13, 1943, when the Czechoslovak battalion, under the command of Lt. Col. Ludwika Svoboda, along...
