Battle of Rostov (1941)

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Axis-Soviet War
Barbarossa – Finland 1941-44 – Leningrad and Baltics 1941-1944 – Crimea and Caucasus – Moscow – 1st Rzhev-Vyazma – 2nd Kharkov – Stalingrad – Velikiye Luki – 2nd Rzhev-Sychevka – Kursk – 2nd Smolensk – Dnieper – 2nd Kiev – Korsun – Hube's Pocket – Bagration – Lvov-Sandomierz – Balkans 1944 – Hungary 1944-1945 – Vistula-Oder – Königsberg – Berlin – Prague – Manchuria 1945

Axis-Soviet War
Barbarossa – Finland 1941-44 – Leningrad and Baltics 1941-1944 – Crimea and Caucasus – Moscow – 1st Rzhev-Vyazma – 2nd Kharkov – Stalingrad – Velikiye Luki – 2nd Rzhev-Sychevka – Kursk – 2nd Smolensk – Dnieper – 2nd Kiev – Korsun – Hube's Pocket – Bagration – Lvov-Sandomierz – Balkans 1944 – Hungary 1944-1945 – Vistula-Oder – Königsberg – Berlin – Prague – Manchuria 1945

Operation Barbarossa
Bialystok-Minsk – Smolensk – Uman – 1st Kiev – Yelnya – Odessa – Leningrad – 1st Crimea – 1st Rostov

Operation Barbarossa
Bialystok-Minsk – Smolensk – Uman – 1st Kiev – Yelnya – Odessa – Leningrad – 1st Crimea – 1st Rostov

The Battle of Rostov (1941) was a battle of the Eastern Front of World War II, fought around Rostov-on-Don between the German Army Group South, commanded by General Gerd von Rundstedt and the Soviet South Front commanded by General Yakov Timofeyevich Cherevichenko.

After winning the Battle of Kiev in September 1941, the German Army Group South pushed down from the Dniepr to the Sea of Azov coast. Walther von Reichenau's 6th Army captured Kharkov. Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel's 17th Army marched through Poltava towards Voroshilovgrad. Erich von Manstein's 11th Army moved into the Crimea and had taken control of all of the peninsula by autumn (except Sevastopol, which held out until 3 July 1942).

Ewald von Kleist's 1st Panzer Army drove down from Kiev and encircled Soviet troops at Melitopol in October, then drove east along the shore of the Sea of Azov toward Rostov at the mouth of the Don river, the gateway to the Caucasus.

On 21 November the Germans took Rostov. However, the German lines were over-extended, and Kleist's warnings that his left flank was vulnerable and that his tanks were ineffective in the freezing weather were ignored. On 27 November the Soviet 37th Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Anton Ivanovich Lopatin, counterattacked the 1st Panzer Army's spearhead from the north, forcing them to pull out of the city. Adolf Hitler countermanded the retreat. When von Rundstedt refused to obey, Hitler sacked him. However, retreat was unavoidable, and the 1st Panzer Army was forced back to the Mius River at Taganrog. It was the first significant German withdrawal of the war.

The battle cost the Red Army about 140,000 casualties, and the Germans about 14,000 dead.

Battle of Rostov (1941)

See also