Editor's note: This is the first hand account of the Chir River battles by the Commander of the 48th Panzer Corps, General von Knobelsdorff, on file at Carlisle Barracks, Pa. No changes were made to the account which does contain sortie discrepancies. For example, von Knobelsdorff refers to the Roumanian Second Army, instead of the Roumanian Third, and refers to the 336th Division as the 338th. I arrived at the command post of the XLVIII Panzer Corps in NIZHNYAYA CHIRSKAYA at approximately 1500 on 5 December 1942 having left the XXIV Panzer Corps. I immediately assumed command of the XLVIII Panzer Corps, taking over from Lieutenant General Kramer. The Corps Chief of Staff was a certain Lieutenant Colonel von Mellenthin, G.S.C., who himself had joined the Corps a few days before. The Corps consisted of a division commanded by a certain Colonel Adam. The Colonel had been in charge of officer personnel records of the Sixth Army which was encircled at STALINGRAD. He happened to have been in the rear when the Sixth Army was suddenly cut off. His division consisted of a motley crew of train soldiers, supply units, men going on or returning from leaves, road and bridge construction engineers, police, gendarmerie, railway operating units, etc. Their officers were likewise somewhat of a motley bunch. The units which had been organized over night had but little fighting value. They were neither trained nor equipped for major action, nor did they have the necessary heavy weapons and signal communications equipment. Yet, they had fought well so far, although the cold made their sufferings more acute than that of other, regular units. The division, holding a bridgehead across the DON east of VERKHNYAYA CHIRSKAYA, was the nucleus of the Corps in the corner formed by the DON and CHIR rivers. Adjoining on the right and extending up to the boundary there was a thinly-held line along the DON made up of 24 Pz Dw Division rear echelon elements. On the left there were those elements of the 338th Infantry Division that had arrived from the Hungarian Army sector by rail and on foot. The division was commanded by Major General Lucht. Its operations officer was a certain Lieutenant Colonel Wiese, G.S.C. Adjoining the division there were newly organized units under the command of Lieutenant General von Stumpffeld and a colonel of engineers by the name of Schmidt. These units extended to the left Corps boundary in the vicinity of OBLIVSKAYA, inclusive. The outpost line ran generally along the railway STALINGRAD- MOROZOVSKI and, in certain places, along the southern bank of the CHIR River. The Russians held only one salient north of NIZHNYAYA CHIRSKAYA, the old Cossack capital which was still inhabited by some Ataman Cossacks. There, in the corner formed by the two rivers, the enemy had advanced across the railway along a narrow sector in the vicinity of NOVY MAKSIMOVSKlY. But Colonel Adam's Division held the commanding heights north of RYCHOV Station. A regiment, commanded by Captain Sauerbruch, G.S.C., held a bridgehead on the east bank of the DON east of VERKYNYAYA CHIRSKAYA. The bridgehead was approximately as large as the woods there. Captain Sauerbruch's regiment consisted almost exclusively of police and military police units. Further to the south, the regiment's positions ran along the west bank of the DON. The 24th Panzer Division had dispatched reconnaissance patrols across the river. The enemy situation was the following: major Russian forces were pushing southwest on both sides of the DON. East of the DON, in the area of the AKSAY River, the Fourth Panzer Army had halted the Russian advance. West of the DON the XLVIII Panzer Corps and the German units to the west of it were under heavy attack by continually reinforced Russian elements, supported by numerous tank brigades. These tank brigades were a new feature of the Russian Army. The enemy's objective was clear: 1. He was aiming to make the relief of German units encircled at STALINGRAD impossible. 2. He was trying to reach the SEA OF AZOV, pushing along the DON, in order to cut off and annihilate the Fourth Panzer Army and the other German armies north of the CAUCASUS in this manner. As of 5 December the XLVIII Panzer Corps was still under the Roumanian Second Army, General Dimitrescu, commanding; Colonel Wenck, G.S.C., was the Army's German chief of staff. The Corps was to hold its positions for the time being. After the attachment of the 6th and 11th Panzer divisions, the Corps was to be transferred to the Fourth Panzer Army and join the latter in the STALINGRAD offensive and relief of the encircled 6th Army. Preattack reconnaissance was to be carried out immediately. I assumed command of the Corps just as major Russian attacks in the river triangle had been fended off. We calculated on the continuation of those attacks. In the morning of 6 December I immediately visited the command post of Colonel Adam's Division in order personally to obtain an estimate of the situation and to scout possibilities for an attack. It was first of all necessary to hold the high ground north of RYCHKOV. In Russian hands it could have made a deployment from out of the river triangle impossible. On 6 December there were scattered and unsuccessful minor Russian attacks, chiefly against NOVY MAKSIMOVSKIY. It was demonstrated that an attack across the DON over the swampy woods and meadows along the low ground on the river banks was not advisable although the ground was frozen. After 7 December the Russians attacked from the east with the objective of seizing the bridgehead and thus causing the fall of the German positions on the high ground in the vicinity of RYCHKOVSKIY which were no longer going to be tenable once their communications along the DON were cut. With the exception of negligible terrain losses, Captain Sauerbruch's police regiment repulsed all enemy attacks. Still, the situation was extremely critical. One could see that neither bridgehead nor high ground could be held for any length of time by such forces as we had there. This was especially true in the light of enemy preparations for a major attack in the vicinity of NOVY MAKSIMOVSKIY and in the area to the west of SUROVIKINO. In the evening of 7 December the Commanding General of the l1th Panzer Division, Major General Balck, arrived at Corps Headquarters. The advance elements of his division had followed him into the area east of MOROZOVSKI. General Balck was ordered to move the division to the area west of NIZHNYAYA CHIRSKAYA on the following day and immediately commence reconnoitering possibilities for an attack. Elements of his antitank and assault gun battalions were to be rushed to the high ground north of RYCHKOVSKIY in order to strengthen our grip on our positions there. The reconnoitering activities of the 11th Panzer Division commenced in the morning of 8 December. The division had ordered all unit headquarters forward for this purpose. The troops themselves were to move into their new billets minus their headquarters. While this reconnaissance was in progress powerful Russian forces supported by numerous tank units, attacked along a broad front between the bridgehead and SUROVIKINO. They swept over the high ground north of RYCHKOVSKIY -- the German reinforcements had not arrived as yet -- and reduced the size of the bridgehead until it was no longer tenable for any length of time, chiefly so, because the bridge itself, the only physical link with the bridgehead, was not within plain view and reach of the enemy. South of the rail line at NOVY MAKSIMOVSKIY, the Russians pushed into the woods in the vicinity of YEZITSKY. The situation was the worst in the sector of the 338th Infantry Division and further to the west in the area south of SUROVIKINO. Infantry elements of the 338th Infantry Division that had arrived until then were holding the high ground on the southern bank of the CHIRin the LISINSKIYCOLOVSKIY sector. They were unable to sweep the dead space of the river bank with their fire. Snow flurries and fog limited visibility. Just as they had been taught, the German infantrymen let the Russian tanks thunder over them while they stayed in their foxholes and heroically held their positions. Infantry further to the west simply withdrew. Russian tanks continued to roll south where, aided by poor visibility, they wrought havoc among reserves and artillery, appearing unexpectedly and virtually on top of the German units. The division, only parts of which had arrived, had nothing with which to stage a counterattack. In this critical hour the XLVIII Panzer Corps decided to have the 11th Panzer Division stage a counterattack. The division was en route without its higher command echelons. The commanders of the various 11th Panzer Division elements and the Commanding General of the 338th Infantry Division who was in NIZNIY SOLONOVSKIY at the time, quickly agreed on steps to be taken. Toward noon the first elements were ready to counterattack on both sides of the town. They completely surprised the Russians and in a spirited attack they threw them back into the CHIR valley beyond the furthest advanced lines of German infantry. The Russians lost a large number of tanks. Other Russian tanks hid in the balkas [deeply cut ravines] behind the front lines where they continued to be a nuisance to the troops during the following days until every last one of them had been knocked out individually. The operation was completed by the time the various higher unit headquarters of the 11th Panzer Division, recalled from their reconnaissance mission, arrived on the scene. The division had demonstrated what a well-trained unit can do even without its regular command. Byholding on to its positions the 338th Infantry Division had likewise contributed brilliantly to this German victory. During the following weeks the division repeated this fact of permitting Russian tanks to lumber over its lines and in this manner make it possible for the positions to be held until after Christmas. Without this faithful steadfastness by the division the STALINGRAD offensive itself would have been entirely impossible because the Fourth Panzer Army and the Corps would have been in too difficult a situation. After the loss of the high ground north of RYCHKOVSKIY the bridgehead east of VERKHNYAYA was no longer tenable. The Corps therefore ordered its evacuation to be carried out in the evening of 8 December. The latter, apparently not detected by the Russians, was accomplished according to plan. The bridge was ordered to be dynamited. Heavy Russian artillery fire repeatedly destroyed the ignition wire. It seems that the personnel of a road construction engineer battalion, mostly older men, were not able to muster enough nerve to repair the wire properly under fire. Quite miraculously it took the Russians until the next day to notice this, although they had been very close to the bridge all night long and though the furthest advanced German lines were approximately one km away from the bridge. The Russians renewed their attacks against the 338th Infantry on 9 December. By the time darkness fell, the enemy infantry and tanks had worked their way close to the high ground held by the division, exploiting the confusing jumble of the many ravines that rose from the bottom of the river valley. Again history repeated itself. The German infantry permitted the Russian tanks to crunch over its lines and repulsed Russian infantry that followed the tanks. Again the Russian tanks were destroyed by the 11th Panzer Division in the depth of the battle position. Losses were pretty high on both sides. The Russians likewise renewed their attacks east of the CHIR and moved major units over the DON bridge which had not been dynamited. Enemy pressure against the Corps had meanwhile increased greatly. The Corps Commander was finally forced to report to the Commanding General of the Fourth Panzer Army, who had flown to the Corps command post in order to discuss the STALINGRAD offensive, that he did not believe himself able to make the 11th Panzer Division available for the attack. The Corps commander stated that he would be happy if he could maintain the positions his Corps was holding at the time and if he would not be forces to withdraw the Adam Division to the western bank of the CHIR. This was the situation as he saw it, unless other powerful units took over the mission of defending and thus enabled the 11th Panzer Division to be made available for the attack. The Corps commander stated that an attack by his Corps was utterly out of the question in view of the existing situation. The situation of the 338th Infantry Division presented the same picture on 10 December. The left wing of the Adam Division and, further to the west, Colonel Schmidt's outfit were likewise under heavy attack. The Russians pushed the latter across the STYR River to the south and penetrated its position on both sides of the road SUROVIKINO-NIZHNIYE KALINOVKA, pushing south along a line that ran west past SYSOYKIN. At this point and at the very moment the 7th Air Force Infantry Division [Luftwaffenfeld Division] was about to be committed. The division had been activated recently and had just been attached to the Corps. The officers and men of this division were completely unseasoned. They had been performing duties with a variety of air force ground elements. Their infantry combat training was utterly inadequate. These men had never been in combat before. The division artillery had received training in antiaircraft firing only. Most of the officers had never even heard of such a thing as weapons and firepower coordination. The division's arms and equipment were, however, much better than those of the ground forces divisions. But there was no one who knew how to handle the division's weapons. The soldiers were rather fine physical specimens; they were willing to fight, but they were completely untrained. They were nothing but pure, unadulterated cannon fodder. And so, the first echelons of the 7th Air Force Infantry Division arrived at the very moment the Russians were breaking through. The division had been ordered to occupy a sector extending roughly from a point south of SUROVIKINO to CHNYENEVSKIY along the southern bank of the CHIR. It was to relieve the units there, which consisted mostly of improvised elements. The furthest advanced air force infantry battalions had been assigned their respective sectors by their division headquarters. However, the division had quite apparently neglected to inform the battalions sufficiently well on the serious nature of the situation. It had failed to give them detailed instructions and orders on how to effect an undetected night time relief. The battalions therefore drove right into the outpost lines. They rumbled along with their trains, without providing for security on the march, without reconnaissance, just as they had been accustomed to doing when they used to take over airfields behind the front. In this fashion, two battalions blissfully kept on driving, never noticing the slightest change in the situation, until they were right in the middle of the Russians where they were duly and promptly wiped out without firing a shot. This was a terrific shock to the division - so terrific, as a matter of fact, that it was for the moment in no shape to be sent into combat as an independent unit. There was nothing left to do but dispatch the 11th Panzer Division to eliminate the enemy salient. This it did in the course of the afternoon and in the morning of 11 December with complete success. The various individual elements of the 7th Air Force Infantry Division were attached to the 338th Infantry Division. The latter incorporated the air force infantry division's proposed sector into its own and placed the air force infantry battalions along quiet sections of its now quite extensive sector. On 12 December the Russians unsuccessfully renewed their attacks at the same points. They expanded the scope of their attacks to the west, crossed the CHIR west of OVLIVSKAYA in the sector of the adjacent unit, and advanced perilously close to the road ARTEMASH-SIVOLOBOV. The enemy took OBLIVSKAYA and utilizing the woods there, he occupied the high ground of the town. For the time being the Corps had nothing whatever to throw against this enemy force. The only available 11th Panzer Division element was its reconnaissance battalion. This battalion, together with units attached to it and with a few heavy antiaircraft batteries stationed in the area, was given the mission of securing against a further enemy break-through, guarding the area along the eastwest road. The battalion once again, accomplished its mission successfully. The 11th Panzer Division was supposed to clear the situation there once and for all on 12 December. The Corps intended to keep the panzer division behind its lines as mobile reserve for the purpose of meeting future enemy penetrations. In the meantime the XLVIII Panzer Corps, tied down by Russian attacks, was ordered to cease its participation in the STALINGRAD push. It remained attached to the Roumanian 2nd Army. The 6th Panzer Division which had been earmarked for attachment to the Corps was ordered straight to the eastern bank of the DON in order to participate in the Fourth Panzer Army's attack. Thus the Corps did no longer have to hold the corner formed by the DON and CHIR rivers which was a difficult mission anyway, considering the forces available to the Corps. The Corps ordered the Adam Division to speed up the construction of positions already reconnoitered on the western bank of the CHIR and to inform the Corps when the move from the east bank to the west bank could be effected. As far as I can remember this move was accomplished during the night between 13 and 14 December. This eliminated a sore spot. We were now on the high ground that commanded the river triangle for a long distance. On the other hand we were hardly in a position to support the Fourth Panzer Army by staging an attack of our own. Once the positions on the west bank of the CHIR had been occupied the headquarters of the Adam Division was dissolved. It was replaced by the division headquarters of Major General von der Gabelente which had been moved out of STALINGRAD just in time. The Corps' DON sector was extended to the south to approximately the town of BALAKHANOVSKIY for the purpose of making things easier for the Fourth Panzer Army. This southern extension of the Corps sector was thinly manned with elements that were available after the river triangle was evacuated and with rear echelon elements of the 24th Panzer Division. The 11th Panzer Division had to eliminate several minor enemy penetrations in the sector of the 338th Infantry Division on the morning of 12 December. It also had to wipe out a few centers of enemy resistance which had remained behind the front. For this reason it took the division until noon of the day before it could start its counterattack south of OBLIVSKAYA. This seemed like a very unpleasant delay at first, but later on it turned out to have been all for the best. In this particular area the sector of the 11th Panzer Division's reconnaissance battalion had been reinforced early in the day with several 8.8 cm antiaircraft batteries and the division's antitank battalion. While this was happening the Russians moved one tank brigade across the CHIR. Subsequent prisoner-of-war statements revealed that this brigade stood poised to strike at the sector of the reconnaissance battalion and that it was generally aimed at the Corps command post at TORMOSLIN, i.e., to the south. The 11th Panzer Division was approaching from the east. On favorable terrain, without being directed by the Russians, the division was standing by on the Russian tank brigade's flank, facing west. At 1300 the Russian tank brigade moved against the reinforced reconnaissance battalion. The 11th Panzer Division, still facing west, allowed the Russians to move south one or two km away from its position. After the Russian tank brigade had paraded by, the panzer regiment of the 11th Panzer Division rolled west a short distance, wheeled south, and then simply fell in behind the Russians. The latter never noticed this. Their attention was focused forward on a break- through. Then the panzer regiment opened fire in the Russians rear and knocked out every last Russian tank without suffering any losses whatever. The Russian brigade was wiped out completely. More than 60 Russian tanks, most of them of American manufacture, littered the battle field. A total of 250 Russian tanks had been destroyed in battle in and behind the German outpost lines since 5 December. Defeating the Russian infantry which followed the tanks turned out to be a more difficult task. The tank battle had lasted until darkness fell at about 1500. When the Russians saw that all their tanks had been knocked out they moved strong infantry units across the CHIR near and east of OBLIVSKAYA during the following night. The 11th Panzer Division attacked the flank of this infantry force while the latter was advancing south on 13 December. The fighting raged back and forth until the Russians were finally forced to withdraw into the woods southeast of OBLIVSKAYA. There the [11th Panzer] division stopped. It was too weak to engage a numerically superior enemy in the woods. Besides, the division's tanks were needed on the left wing on the von der Gabelente Division where Russian tanks had effected a penetration. These salients were eliminated by the division's panzer regiment. The armored infantry brigade of the division had to be left in the Gabelente sector, leaving the panzer regiment as the sole mobile reserve of the Corps. In the meantime the Russians had continued their attacks against the Fourth Panzer Army east of the DON. The Panzer Army was still in the process of deploying its units for its own offensive when the Russian attack occurred. The Army was thus forced to counterattack without having completed its deployment. The 6th Panzer Division was not assembled in toto as yet. The 11th Panzer Division was likewise to be transferred to the Panzer Army. At this point the Commander of the XLVIII Panzer Corps put his foot down, pointing toward the serious nature of the situation in his sector. The 11th Panzer stayed with the Corps. To the left of the Corps, in the Roumanian sector, the Russians continued to gain ground. They had successfully begun a largescale attack against the Italian sector. Heavy enemy attacks continued along the entire frontage of the XLVIII Panzer Corps. On the whole the Corps succeeded in repulsing all enemy attacks. But the situation continued to deteriorate, the lines thinned as a result of constant losses, and the soldiers became more and more fatigued, for they were engaged in continuous fighting without rest or reprieve. After initial successes the Fourth Panzer Army offensive ran out roughly along the MISHKOVA River sector, where the Russians finally counterattacked. This sealed the fate of STALINGRAD, for Hitler had prohibited the evacuation of the city; he had likewise forbidden the Sixth Army to cut its way out of the encirclement and join heads with the Fourth Panzer Army which it probably could still have done. Back to Table of Contents: CounterAttack # 3 To CounterAttack List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1991 by Pacific Rim Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com