Turning the pages back...

September 26, 1941

Soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, it became evident that the whole of Ukraine was in danger of falling to the Wehrmacht. Hitler realized that capturing Ukraine's farmland and many natural resources was an essential step for the eventual defeat of the Soviets. On June 30, Lviv was overrun. In early August, Uman, as well as 100,000 Soviet troops, surrendered to the Field Marsh Karl von Rundstedt's Army Group South. The advance through the steppes seemed unstoppable.

In an all-out effort to slow the German advance, Joseph Stalin ordered Kyiv defended to the last man. In command of the city's defense were Stalin's old cronies: Marshall Semen Budenny and Chief Commissar Nikita Khrushchev. Stalin considered Kyiv the "capital of Russian cities," and promised Winston Churchill that the Soviet Union would never surrender Kyiv, Moscow, or Leningrad. Marshal Georgi Zhukov warned Stalin that the Red Army had to abandon Kyiv to avoid encirclement, but Stalin lost his temper and dismissed Zhukov from his position as Chief of the General Staff.

After capturing Uman, von Rundstedt's mobile forces rushed in, moving to positions south of Kyiv. The 1st Panzer Group, joining with Gen. Heinz Guderian's army divisions, then rushed south behind the city and linked up with von Rundstedt. The encirclement happened so quickly the Soviet command could not respond. Stalin still refused to leave the city, and only decided otherwise after it was already too late.

On September 26 the Battle of Kyiv ended. Five Soviet armies totaling 665,000 troops, including 886 tanks and 3,718 artillery pieces, were captured. To this day it remains the largest surrender in military history. Hitler immediately called it the "greatest battle in the history of the world," but Gen. Franz Halder, chief of the General Staff, and Gen. Guderian called it the greatest blunder on the Eastern Front. They felt that all available forces should have been sent north to capture Moscow first.

Source: "Stalingrad - The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943" by Antony Beevor. New York: Viking Penguin, 1998.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, September 22, 2002, No. 38, Vol. LXX

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