Battle of Sovkhoz «Red Star» (Sovkhoz 79)

[Yuri]

Gliederung of Art.Reg./15.Lw.FD on 28 November 1942

028_028-FlakKorp1_FlakGeschutz_28-11-42 _305(blu).jpg

[Yuri]

24 November 1942 8th motorcycle regiment raided Oblivskaya. The results of the regiment commander Lieutenant Colonel Belik has announced.

TsAMO F. 331 Op.5041 D.13 P. 311,312,313,314

To whom: the Romanenko
Departure time: 14.20
Whence: Generalovskij [on the germans map Generalow- Yuri]

1) The opponent (Germans) hasty passes to defense on the river Chir. The enemy situation is put on a map. Units of the opponent hasty throw from a direction of Rostov and from the Rostov city (from indications of the Germans POWs).
2) The opponent tries to filter the separate motorized groups forward, I disperse and destroy.
3) Movement is by rail interrupted. Has torn a the cable and telephone line in region Nizhne-Osinovskij (1,5 kms. south from Dubovyj).
I'm has broken the equipment of management on the station Sekretev.
Has shot a train at station Sekretev. [on this train went 36-th Estonian police battalion - Yuri]
The opponent tightens hasty reserves, hastily digs entrenchments, as shown in a map. Has blown up bridges through the river Chir in regions: Gusynka, Parshin, Deev [on the German map Geew - Yuri]. Groups I operate according to put on a map. Has destroyed day of 4 guns AT (52 mm) prior to 250 Germans, 18 transport machines.
250 Romanian and 50 Germans has taken POWs. Privates Germans and four officers has shot. One officer was directed with in Army headquarters.
The Romanian of all has sent in rear. With the trophy weapon the guerrilla has armed, I create from former ours POWs. The aircraft of the opponent operates especially impudently, on low-level flight bombs and fires from machine guns.
8-th Cavalry Corps has very big losses in horse structure and people.
I now have all of motorcycles - 56, guns - ? [in it a place the text is very badly read - Yuri], tanks - are not present, armour vehicles - 5 pieces.
1) I ask to give me 8-10 tanks T-34, to cover me and Cav. Corps from air, with the ground gady [gady - vile, disgusting creatures that must be destroyed - Yuri] we by yuorself shall be crack down strong.
2) As soon as possible to throw a mechanized infantry and tanks, to not give of the opponent to be dug round. I do not have fuel, many machines stand.
Where it is necessary to operate our aircraft (to cover) I has outlined the red big circles.
3) I ask to return to me mine an armoured troop-carrier a company.
Belik.

The Protocol of interrogation of the POW officer didn't find today, but there is a short summary from his indications.

(TsAMO, D.24, p. 139)

POW grasped 24.11 in the region Oblivskaja, belonging 7-th group of air defence 4-n batteries, has shown: the battery in structure of 12 20-mm guns has arrived from the city Rostov in Oblivskaja. Oblivskaja defend up to a regiment of infantry /Germans/, numbering does not know.

Thus in addition to Flak battery and Flak Abteilung was still anti-aircraft group (luftabwehrgruppen).

At the same time, there are no luftabwehrgruppen in the anti-aircraft divisions of the 1st anti-aircraft corps.
In the division's meldungs not information about such groups.
However, Meldung 9th anti-aircraft division reported that in the Stalingradkessel six anti-aircraft groups (numbers not specified).
In Meldung of 9.Flakdiv. from 24.12 it is reported that the group Sell included four anti-aircraft group (numbers not shown).
In my "The Big book of Flak" there is no information about anti-aircraft groups.
In Gliederung of 99th antiaircraft regiment show some anti-aircraft groups.
The 99th anti-aircraft regiment was directly subordinate to the 8th air corps on April 5, 1942.
Before that, the regiment was part of the 3rd anti-aircraft corps in the Vyazma area.
The task of this regiment is air defense of objects on the railway and field airfields. The regiment interacted with the Romanian anti-aircraft artillery (rum.IV.Brigade).
As I understand it, the anti-aircraft groups appear to be designed to protect the airfield and are tied to Luftwaffe flight units.
I gathered information about these groups in the Meldungs, Messages and Maps to find out how many and which luftabwehrgruppen were operating in the Stalingrad area, including the Lower Chira area.
This revealed some interesting details about the ground units of the 4th air fleet, which were created both before and after the beginning of "The Great Russian offensive" (as named in the germans and romanians dokuments the operation Uranus).

[Yuri]

AGB_Flak_.jpg

Romanian anti-aircraft artillery on the Don

IV_FlakBr_Rum_Gliderung_600.jpg

[Yuri]

Lage on 18 November 1942

42-11-18_Stalingrad_rum3A_4A_Pz4_6A_1200.jpg

Gliderung Flak.Reg.99 (with my changes)

Flak_Reg_99_42-11-14_Gr7_.jpg

[Yuri]

42-11-24_8MTsReg_Raid_Obliwskaja_.jpg

[Yuri]

9Flak_42-12-15_Karte_cut(b_).jpg

[Yuri]

The decision of the commander of the 1st anti-aircraft corps gen. Dessloch on the use of heavy companies of the 15.Lw.F.D. in the area of the 4th Tank Army

42-11-20_schwKomp_15LwFD_600.jpg

[Yuri]

This branch appeared because 22 years ago I started looking for information about my paternal grandfather. He was officially listed as missing in October 1943. However, I knew that date was wrong. This date was reported in 1946 by my grandmother, when relatives were interviewed in relation to soldiers who were reported missing. One of those who returned home from the front told my grandmother that he had seen her husband alive in August 1943 in the battle for Kharkov. However the last letter grandfather wrote in late December 1942. My grandmother hoped that he alive and so told those who pursued a poll, that the last time its husband saw alive in August 1943 year. And now I was able to find documents that fully disclose the circumstances of the death of my grandfather. He died in the field mobile hospital on 28 January 1943, 23 hours, 40 minutes and initially buried in the cemetery in the village Kuznetsy, Ilovlinskiy district, Stalingrad region.

[Yuri]

AHF helped in my search, so I thank everyone who created it, accompanies and supports, as well as everyone who participated in the discussion of this topic.
In 2011, I found a document in the archive, which stated that my grandfather was killed on December 28, 1941. I probably would have stopped further research if there wasn't this topic on AHF.
In the document, with a list of three dead soldiers (including my grandfather), correctly specified the name, second name and surname of his wife (my grandmother), and in her address is correctly listed only the region and the district, but instead the name of village the number of the social office insurance benefit. On the document there is a mark that the notice is sent.
However, there is no social office specified in the document in our district. Apparently for this reason, but not only, my grandmother did not receive notice of the death of her husband. In addition, the document did not specify the place of burial.
By the time this document was found, one of the AHF's visitors (but not a member) had sent me scans of the KTB of 11. Pz.D. and with them several pages of the General Balck's division history book.
This page of the book made me continue my search.

PzD11_General_Balck_and_sergant Kurilko.jpg

[kfbr392]

Yuri, great posts, thanks.

From Balcks biography, a translation of the above document:

"As I drove through Sovkhos [State Farm] 79 a horrible picture unfolded before me. The supply units of the 336th Division had been staged there. By the hundreds our brave soldiers had been brutally slaughtered. They had been surprised and destroyed by the Russians in the early morning hours.
That scene made one basic fact clear. This was all about the existence or nonexistence of our people. Would it be possible in the face of this extremely tense situation and the endless Russian onslaught to protect the Fatherland? We believed and hoped that we could. I summarized the situation in a divisional order of the day, one of the very few that I ever published:


11th Panzer Division
Staff Section Ic40
Comrades,
The Bolshevist cruelties at Sovkhos 79, where several hundred German soldiers were slaughtered by the Russians, will remain in our memories forever.
The interrogation of the prisoner of war, Sergeant Ivan Jakovevich Kurilko, from Kharkov, born 1918, 1st Company, 346th Tank Battalion, 157th Tank Brigade, resulted in the following information: At a meeting shortly before 19 November 1942 (in preparation for the brigade to attack the Romanian Third Army) at which all brigade and battalion commanders were present, two Romanians were brought before them who supposedly had deserted. Those assembled were told that these were Romanians, and that Romanians were to be taken prisoner. They were ordered, on the other hand, to take no German prisoners.
They were ordered not to shoot Romanians in front of Germans, but to shoot Germans in front of Romanians. This statement corroborates what we have seen with our own eyes at Sovkhos 79. It is also consistent in all details with the repeated announcements in the Anglo-American press calling for the complete eradication of the German people.41
In total contradiction to this, as all of you know, is the dishonest Russian propaganda that promises German defectors and prisoners safety and return to the Fatherland after the war.
Comrades, the tough days of fighting that are behind us now show us anew that this is about the existence or nonexistence of our people. If in the future you waver in your courage, should you grow weak during the bitter fighting, always remember the Anglo-American hate tirades, the slogans of the 157th Russian Tank Brigade, and the horrible sights at Sovkhos 79 that prove to us without a doubt the fate that will await us if we do not win this fight.
Balck


Based on this order, claims were later made that I had ordered the shooting of all Russian prisoners. I never again released such an edict. Its sole purpose had been to show everybody what our situation was in the big picture and what was at stake. I found other ways to tell my people the truth.“

from:
Order in Chaos: The Memoirs of General of Panzer Troops Hermann Balck (Foreign Military Studies)
Hermann Balck

[100div]

Good day!
This was an excess that occurred due to the strongest propaganda pumping in the Soviet troops before the offensive. Of course it was a war crime. There was the 1118th Regiment (333 SD) and the 216th tank Brigade

[Yuri]

Yuri, great posts, thanks.

From Balcks biography, a translation of the above document:

"As I drove through Sovkhos [State Farm] 79 a horrible picture unfolded before me. The supply units of the 336th Division had been staged there. By the hundreds our brave soldiers had been brutally slaughtered. They had been surprised and destroyed by the Russians in the early morning hours.
That scene made one basic fact clear. This was all about the existence or nonexistence of our people. Would it be possible in the face of this extremely tense situation and the endless Russian onslaught to protect the Fatherland? We believed and hoped that we could. I summarized the situation in a divisional order of the day, one of the very few that I ever published:


11th Panzer Division
Staff Section Ic40
Comrades,
The Bolshevist cruelties at Sovkhos 79, where several hundred German soldiers were slaughtered by the Russians, will remain in our memories forever.
The interrogation of the prisoner of war, Sergeant Ivan Jakovevich Kurilko, from Kharkov, born 1918, 1st Company, 346th Tank Battalion, 157th Tank Brigade, resulted in the following information: At a meeting shortly before 19 November 1942 (in preparation for the brigade to attack the Romanian Third Army) at which all brigade and battalion commanders were present, two Romanians were brought before them who supposedly had deserted. Those assembled were told that these were Romanians, and that Romanians were to be taken prisoner. They were ordered, on the other hand, to take no German prisoners.
They were ordered not to shoot Romanians in front of Germans, but to shoot Germans in front of Romanians. This statement corroborates what we have seen with our own eyes at Sovkhos 79. It is also consistent in all details with the repeated announcements in the Anglo-American press calling for the complete eradication of the German people.41
In total contradiction to this, as all of you know, is the dishonest Russian propaganda that promises German defectors and prisoners safety and return to the Fatherland after the war.
Comrades, the tough days of fighting that are behind us now show us anew that this is about the existence or nonexistence of our people. If in the future you waver in your courage, should you grow weak during the bitter fighting, always remember the Anglo-American hate tirades, the slogans of the 157th Russian Tank Brigade, and the horrible sights at Sovkhos 79 that prove to us without a doubt the fate that will await us if we do not win this fight.
Balck


Based on this order, claims were later made that I had ordered the shooting of all Russian prisoners. I never again released such an edict. Its sole purpose had been to show everybody what our situation was in the big picture and what was at stake. I found other ways to tell my people the truth.“

from:
Order in Chaos: The Memoirs of General of Panzer Troops Hermann Balck (Foreign Military Studies)
Hermann Balck

Thank you very much for translating General Balka's order.
Thank you also for the flattering assessment of my posts.
At the time, I also translated the order of the commander of the 11th Panzer Division into English (but I previously translated it from German into Russian). After a while I will publish my translation in its original form. I will be interested to know how adequate my translations from German to English through Russian are.

I must say that initially I had no intention of publishing Balck's order in this place. I wanted to give information about the losses of the 333rd Rifle Division for October, November and December 1942, which are very detailed.
I decided to place Balka's order because, according to the information of the 216th Tank Brigade, Sergeant Kurilko was killed, but this information does not indicate the place of burial. By the way, you correctly indicated the surname Kurilko despite the fact that the book is written with an error, namely, instead of the letter "u" is "o" (Korilko instead of Kurilko). Why Sergeant Kurilko told the Germans that he belonged to the 157th Tank Brigade is not clear. To this day, a memorial plaque installed in Surovikino indicates that Sergeant Kurilko was killed in the battles for the liberation of this settlement. The fact that Sergeant Kurilko was captured and alive became known only after the war in 1957. The TSAMO file (this file contains all the information about all the dead and missing soldiers and sergeants) indicates that Sergeant Kurilko was killed, but the burial place is not indicated. I paid attention to this and decided to check those about whom it is indicated - killed, but at the same time the burial place is not indicated.
Without going into the details of the work I have done, I will only say about the conclusion:
- firstly, there are a lot of objective reasons why there is no correct or complete information about the deceased or missing during the fighting in the file;
- secondly, if you persevere and take the time, then all the information will most likely be found.
But this requires a separate story.

Now about Balck's order of December 14, 1942, which he gives in his book..
The reason for the order's appearance is not that the Russians shot captured German soldiers at the state farm.
The captured German soldiers were shot on December 8, and their execution was natural, because the Russians were surrounded and were going to break through. Actually, about 400 prisoners were shot at the state farm 79 (that is, the village of Sysoikin), where the battalions of the 216th tank Brigade of Lieutenant Colonel Kozhanov were located. About 100 more captured German soldiers were shot at a field camp northwest of the state farm, where the 8th motorcycle regiment of Lieutenant Colonel Belik was.
However, we see that Balck issued the order on December 14, that is, a week after the fact of the execution of prisoners. What is the reason for issuing the order a week later?
Because the real reason for issuing the order is as follows.
The 48th Panzer Corps, including the 11th Panzer Division, began the offensive according to the "Winter Storm" plan on December 10, 1942, then two days earlier than the 57th Panzer Corps. Heavy but unsuccessful battles with heavy losses lowered the morale of the Wehrmacht soldiers. As a result, on December 14, several soldiers of the 336th Infantry Division and the 11th Tank Division defected to the Red Army. The most remarkable case is the passage on a motorcycle of a soldier of the reconnaissance battalion of the 11th Tank Division in the early morning of December 14th. This soldier told everything in detail about the Balck division and the reconnaissance battalion of this division (I have already given the interrogation protocol earlier). After the interrogation, the German soldier turned to his comrades in the sound-amplifying unit with an appeal to switch to the side of the Red Army.
On the same day, the 11th Panzer Division launched an attack on the bridgehead in Nizhnyaya Kalinovka. This bridgehead was defended by the British Matilda tanks, which had no fuel. At the time of the attack, German Yu-87 dive bombers appeared over the battlefield, two waves of 12 aircraft each. The German pilots made a mistake and attacked their tanks and motorized infantry. The Germans were saved from complete defeat by the fact that the 5th mechanized Corps lacked gasoline and the Matildas could not attack the German motorized infantry.
Most likely, December 14 was the most difficult day for the 11th Panzer Division in terms of morale.

[100div]

Yuri, where did you get the information about 400 and 100 German prisoners killed? the Germans themselves in their investigation confirm only about 100 dead prisoners!

[HazemAllam]

Relationship of the Chir River Battles to the Stalingrad Pocket - less than 20 miles from Group Adam to the 6th Army.

Thanks Yuri, it's a great post.
I was just wondering if you know who is that "group adam" is, also there was a mention about another group called "Heilmann". I tried to search for any information about these 2 groups, but kinda fialed to dig anything about them, I'm translating a book and it's mentioning these 2 groups and I've no information about them, and there is no other mention in the book for them.

[Yuri]

Today, December 7, 2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of The Battle for the State Farm "Red Star"/"Krasnaya Zvezda" (State Farm No. 79).
It's hard to believe, but in a few months it will be 25 years since I started searching for documents about the fate of my grandfather in TsAMO, which eventually led me to the fields of this state farm.
How quickly time flies!