Spring came late in 1942. The German High Command knew a Red Army offensive was imminent. After fierce attacks and counterattacks in the long, grueling winter months of January and February, a new front line formed with a Soviet salient across the Northern Donets River south of Kharkov, threatening German supply operations in southern Russia and the annihilation of the First Panzer Army.

The Red Army wanted to follow its successful winter operations by maintaining the strategic initiative with a spring offensive. Believing the Germans were focused on attacking Moscow, Joseph Stalin and the Red Army General Staff concentrated Soviet strategic reserves in the Orel-Kursk region to protect the southern approach to the capital. The Red Army High Command calculated an offensive around Kharkov could be conducted widow encountering significant German army reserves.

German army planners, on the other hand, believed it necessary to restore the situation south of Kharkov before attempting a major offensive operation: a strategic drive across southern Russia into the economically rich Caucasus. Army Group South decided on a limited double envelopment, encircling the Soviet forces west of the Northern Donets River with General Ewald von Kleist's Army Group and Sixth Army. The starting date for the operation was to be the middle of May since, before then, a majority of the participating German army troops would not have had sufficient time to reorganize and resupply.

On 12 May 1942, anticipating the German offensive by five days, Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, commander of the South-West Front, launched a powerful "decisive offensive," as he called it in his order of the day. The South-West Fronts operation sought to envelop German forces in the Kharkov area from north to south, carrying the offensive farther to the west to the Dnieper River. The Northern Shock Group, consisting of the 28th, 38th and part of the 21st armies, attacked the German defense near Volchansk, and the Southern Shock Group of the 6th Army and also General L. V. Bobkin's Group broke through the German defenses west of Izyum. The 9th and 57th armies of the South Front advanced, protecting the southern flank of the offensive.

Despite the great number of units drawn together in the South-West Front's offensive, the numerical superiority of Soviet troops over the German forces was very slight at 2.1:1. Red Army rifle divisions were no more than 8,000 to 9,000 men while German infantry divisions were at nearly 90-percent strength with 14,000 to 15,000 men. The South-West Front had an advantage of 1.5-to-1 in artillery and mortars and possessed a slim advantage in tanks at 2.5-to-1.

However, thee scale and intensity of the Soviet offensive surpised the Germans who detected a powerful combination of air, artillery, infantry and tanks. Adopting lessons from the first half year of war, the Red Army was in transition. The size and organization of basic fighting units were balanced with the limits of industrial production and commanders abilities to control large units. The Red Army Supreme High Command, the Stavka, directed the South-West Front to create three new tank units from tank brigades already assigned in the Front. German intelligence believing Soviet lank brigades formed the biggest armored formation, never realized the South-West Front had created new tank corps and deployed two of these in the salient.

In the first 72 hours. Soviet units advanced 25 kilometers in the north at Volchansk and 50 kilometers south of Kharkov. With his successful offensive thrust from the salient, Timoshenko could have committed his tank corps into the 6th Army breach to lead the encirclement of the enemy group. Although the Germans had gained air superiority on 14 May, Timoshenko waited and held his armored punch for a more suitable moment.

Meanwhile, the Germans completed preparations for their offensive with General Friedrich Paulus Sixth Army poised to mike north of the salient. Army Group Kleist would strike against the 57th and 9th armies of the South Front, which were protecting Timoshenko's penetration. The two rifle armies held a 180-km sector, their defense based on a system of strongpoints 3 to 4 kilometers in depth with no reinforcements at the front.

On 17 May, Army Group Kleist, including one panzergrenadier, two panzer, and eight infantry divisions, crashed into the 9th Army sector, advancing 20 kilometers in the early part of the day. German numerical superiority in the 9th Army sector was in number of infantry battalions at almost 1.5-to-1, artillery at 2-to-1 and tanks at 6.5-to-1. Soviet troop defenses were shallow and easily penetrated. Supported by large air forces, five German infantry divisions pressed against the 57th Army, imperiling the rear of the 57th Army and the entire SouthWest Front assault at the base of the salient.

With faulty intelligence on the size and location of the German buildup on his flanks, Timoshenko, on the morning of 17 May, decided to commit the 21st Tank Corps to the drive on Kharkov. This initial reaction to the southern assault was to dispatch the 5th Cavalry Corps, a rifle division and a tank brigade from his reserve to strengthen the hard-pressed 9th Army. The 2nd Cavalry Corps was also given to the South Front commander, who was ordered to counterattack. But, in a rapidly deteriorating situation, the South Front lost contact with the 9th Army and the cavalry corps.

In the meantime, Soviet forces north of Kharkov, faltering in their assault, took up defensive positions. Timoshenko requested mor forces to hold the bulge. Since the strategic reserves protected Moscow, the Red Army possessed no immediate reserves to throw into the situation. Stavka ordered Timoshenko to continue his drive on Kharkov. Stalin himself talked with Timoshenko that night, assuring the field commander that the southern defense would hold.

By the next morning, the South Front's inability to hold the German onslaught became evident to Soviet field commanders. On the very first day of their offensive, the German forces succeeded in breaking through the 9th Army's shallow defenses. The chief of the Red Army General Staff approached Stalin to halt the offensive, but Stalin refused.

By evening of 18 May, the German units, advancing to the north 40 to 50 km, reached the Northern Donets in the vicinity of Makhachkala (Petrovsk). German air strikes destroyed the 9th Army headquarters. Without their higher control element, 9th Army troops were forced to withdraw to the north, northwest and behind the Northern Donets. The advance of Army Group Kleist along the west bank of the Northern Donets created an immediate threat of envelopment for the entire Soviet force operation in the Barvenkovo salient. Decisive action was required to fend off the German counterattack and stabilize the situation.

In view of the circumstances, the South-West Front offensive should have been halted: its form shifted to assist the South Front in closing the breach. There is controversy within Soviet military literature over who failed to call off the offensive at this point. ln a telephone call from Nikita Khrushchev (Timoshenko's commissar and the future leader of the Soviet Union) to the Chief of Geneal Staff A. M. Vasilevskey, the political officer asked for a cessation in the offensive. Stalin, ignoring the advice of his political watchdog, continued to refuse to halt the drive on Kharkov.

Not until the evening of 19 May, when the 6th and 57th armies and also Group Bobkin were in certain danger of being surrounded did Timoshenko order the 6th Army to halt its advance and join the 9th and 57th armies in a concentrated effort to eliminate the German breach. Stalin agreed with the order.

On 21 May, the situation took a decisive turn for the German army. Army Group Kleist's spearhead, the III Panzer Corps, struck due north with one panzergrenadier and two panzer divisions at Balakkya. west of Izyum, while its infantry divisions faced against the retreating South-West Front. At the same time, Paulus ordered his Sixth Army to attack south across the northern Donets with one infantry and two panzer divisions. Both sides of the pincer met during the afternoon of the following day southwest of Balakleya. Both forces turned to the west, their backs against the Northern Donets, waiting for Timoshenko's breakout attempt.

Withdrawal routes across the Northern Donets were cut off for Soviet troops remaining in the salient. Reversing its direction, the South-West Front attempted to break out of the encirclement against superior German forces that completely controlled the air. Soviet troops were short of ammunition, fuel and food. Me pressing advance of the Army Group Kleist's panzer and panzergrenadier units prevented an orderly concentration of 6th Army forces against the breakthrough. ln fights of appalling slaughter, groups of Russian infantry and tanks charged desperately against the closed German ring.

Isolated groups of Red Army troops succeeded in slipping out of the encirclement and crossing to the eastern bank of the Northern Donets. ln a battle of annihilation, the Germans claimed destruction of 15 infantry divisions, seven cavalry divisions, 10 tank brigades and the capture of 200,000 troops. Red Army casualties were heavy in senior leadership ranks, including General F. Y. Kostenko, deputy commander of the Front, General K. P. Podlas, commander of the 57th Army, Geneal A. M. Gorodnyansky. commander of the 6th Army, and Dobkin. Gorodnyansky, a brave and courageous commander in the previous summer's battles, shot himself.

The spring disaster at Kharkov tilted the scales of the southern wing of the Soviet-German front in favor of the Germans. The Red Army with its fledgling tank corps was still no match for the more experienced armored formation of the German army. Timoshenko, relieved of his command, spent the remainder of the war in the backwaters of responsibility.

By eliminating the Red Army salient and inflicting a severe attrition of forces, Germany improved its starting position for a new, major offensive that would lead it into the Caucasus and Stalingrad. Kleist continued fighting on the eastern front until Hider relieved him along with Field Marshal Erich von Manstein in March 1944. Paulus surrendered himself and his army at Stalingrad in February 1943.

Kharkov was a small battle in the context of the war on the Eastern Front, but it decided the strategic initiative in the summer of 1942. The Red Army defeat opened the way for the Gomm army to invade the southern Soviet Union and Stalingrad.