Battle of Uman

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The eastern front at the time of the Battle of Uman.

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 Uman (July 1941 — August 8, 1941) was a battle on the Eastern Front of World War II in the summer of 1941, fought in Western Ukraine between the German Army Group South commanded by General Gerd von Rundstedt and the Soviet Forces in the Southwestern Direction, Commander-in-Chief Marshal Semyon Budyonny, which included Soviet Southwestern Front commanded by Colonel General Mikhail Kirponos) and Soviet Southern Front commanded by Army General Ivan Tyulenev.

In the initial weeks of Operation Barbarossa, Army Group South had driven rapidly east, capturing Lvov, Tarnopol and Vinnitsa, and destroying four mechanised corps that Kirponos led in a counterattack. This episode was the largest engagement of tank forces before the Battle of Kursk. The Soviet tanks outnumbered Germans, but their activities were poorly coordinated. The Soviet forces tried to cut off the advancing German columns, but they were hit both from North and South in the area of Dubno. By June 29, the German advance was temporarily halted, but the Soviet forces were exhausted and started to retreat.

On 10 July Budyonny was given the general command of the troops operating in the Southwestern direction, to coordinate the actions of Southwestern and Southern Fronts. Budyonny had 1.5 million soldiers under his command in two large concentrations at Uman and Kiev. No sooner had he taken up his command than Army Group South launched three assaults deep into Ukraine. General Ewald von Kleist's Panzer Group 1 drove a wedge between the two Soviet concentrations south of Kiev and north of Uman, capturing Berdichev on 15 July and Kazatin on 16 July. General Karl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel's Seventeenth Army advanced to the south of Uman and General Ritter von Schobert's Eleventh Army advanced northwards from the Romanian border.

The Stavka and the command of the Southern Front mistakenly assumed that the Germans were striving to reach the crossing of the Dnieper between Kiev and Cherkassy for a further march towards Donbass and underestimated the danger of the encirclement of the 6th and 12th Armies. On July 28 an order was given to the Southwestern and Southern Fronts to block the Germans from the Dnieper and to retreat only in the Eastern direction. As a result, an opportunity to avoid the danger of enciclement by retreating in the Southeastern direction was lost.

On 2 August the encirclement loop was closed by the meeting of the 1st Panzer Group and 17th Field Army, which was reinforced on the next day by the second loop when the 16th Panzer Division and Hungarian Corps met. By 8 August the Soviet resistance was generally stopped, and 20 Soviet divisions from the Sixth and Twelfth Armies smashed; and reportedly around 100,000 were captured, including the commanders of both Armies, 4 corps commanders and 11 division commanders.

The total Soviet losses during the operation are difficult to estimate, but a reasonable number would be 200,000 killed and wounded and 100,000 prisoners.

Battle of Uman

See also