Battle of Uman

The Battle of Uman (15 July 8 August 1941) was the

German and allied encirclement of the 6th and 12th Soviet Armiesunder the command of Lieutenant General
I. N. Muzyrchenko and Major General P. G. Ponedelin,
respectivelysouth of the city of Uman during the initial oensive operations of German Army Group South,
commanded by Generalfeldmarshall Gerd von Rundstedt, as part of Operation Barbarossa on the Eastern Front
during World War II.[1]

fensive, and in mid-July German troops cut the rail road

at Talnoye and other bridges over the Gorniy Tikich, and
soon after the bridges over Sinucha.

2 Orders of battle
Most of the Soviet forces were severely depleted having
withdrawn under heavy assaults from the Luftwae from
the Polish border, and the mechanised units were virtually reduced to a single Corps after the Brody counteroensive, its mechanised infantry now ghting as ordinary rie troops.

The battles occurred during the Kiev defensive operation

between the elements of the Red Army's Southwestern
Front defending the Southern Bug bridges and the strategic rail road between Odessa and Smolensk, and elements
of Panzergruppe 1 in Western Ukraine during the latters
The Axis forces were divided into those of Panzergruppe
advance from southern Poland to Crimea.
1 that had suered signicant loses in matriel, but reThe Soviet forces were under overall command of
tained combat eectiveness, and the large infantry formathe Southwestern Direction, commanded by Marshal
tions of the German and Romanian armies that attempted
Semyon Budyonny, which included the Southwestern
to advance from the West to meet the armored troops
Front commanded by Colonel General Mikhail Kirponos.
north of Crimea, the initial strategic objective of Army
The headquarters and many subunits of the 12th Army
Group South.
were able to evade the encirclement due to the inability of the German infantry formations to fully close the
cauldron, however both armies were later disbanded, and
escaping troops were incorporated into other units. This 2.1 Red Army
was among the large Axis encirclements that were exe 6th Army
cuted against the Red Army.
6th Rie Corps (reduced)

37th Rie Corps (reduced)

Prelude

4th Mechanised Corps (remnants)

In the initial weeks of Operation Barbarossa, Army
Group South had rapidly advanced East, capturing Lviv,
Ternopil and Vinnytsia, and destroying four mechanized
corps that Kirponos used in a counterattack at the Brody.
By 29 June 1941, the German advance was temporarily
halted, but the Soviet forces were exhausted and started
to retreat. With the failure of the Soviet armor counteroensive against the German 1st Panzer-Armee, Army
Group South continued to advance East and reached to
within a few kilometers of Kiev by mid-July. An attempt was then made by Budyonny to counter-attack from
north of Uman in the direction of Berdychiv to prevent
Panzergruppe 1 from cutting o his lines of communication. However this counterstroke failed to contact significant German armoured forces which passed only some
50 km (31 mi) to the east of the Soviet concentration in
its continued oensive. The counterstroke however exhausted the ability of Soviet formations to continue withdrawal more rapidly than the advance of the German of-

15th Mechanised Corps (remnants)

5th Cavalry Corps (remnants)
4th Fortied Region (remnants)
6th Fortied Region (remnants)
12th Army
13th Rie Corps (reduced)
17th Rie Corps (reduced)
16th Mechanised Corps (remnants)
10th Fortied Region (remnants)
11th Fortied region (remnants)
12th Fortied region (remnants)
Elements of 18th Army
1

7 SEE ALSO

2.2

Wehrmacht

6th Field Army

Panzergruppe 1 (reduced)
17th Field Army
Hungarian Mechanized Corps
3rd Romanian Army
11th Field Army

The battles of encirclement

On 10 July 1941, 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 troops under his command in two strategic sectors of the front to
defend: at Kiev (37th and 26th armies), and VinnytsiaUman. No sooner had he taken up his command than
he was advised of the continued Army Group South
three-pronged oensives deep into the breach created between the Kiev sectors 26th Army and the 6th Army
to its south as General Ewald von Kleists Panzergruppe
1 drove a wedge between the two Soviet sectors of the
front south of Kiev and north of Vinnytsia, capturing
Berdychiv on 15 July and Koziatyn on 16 July. General Karl-Heinrich von Stlpnagels 17th Field Army advanced to the South of Uman and General Eugen Ritter von Schoberts 11th Field Army advanced northward
from the Romanian border.[2]
Stavka and the Southern Front's command sta mistakenly assumed that the Germans were striving to reach the
crossing of the Dnieper between Kiev and Cherkasy for
a further oensive toward Donbass, and underestimated
the danger of encirclement for the 6th and 12th armies.
On 28 July, an order was given to the Southwestern and
Southern Fronts to stop the Germans from crossing the
Dnieper and to retreat only in the Eastern direction. As a
result, an opportunity to avoid the danger of encirclement
by retreating in the Southeastern direction was lost.
The eect of the closing Axis forces was to slowly force
the concentration of the two Soviet Armies in an ever reduced area, with the combined HQs of the armies located
in the town of Podvisokoye ().
On 2 August, the encirclement was closed by the meeting of Panzer Group 1 and advance guard elements of
the German 17th Field Army. This encirclement was reinforced the next day by a second joining formed when
the German 16th Panzer Division met with the Hungarian
Mechanized Corps (Gyorshadtest). By 8 August, the Soviet resistance had generally stopped. Remnants of 20
divisions from the 6th Army and the 12th Army were
trapped.[3] German sources after the war reported about

103,000 troops were taken prisoner.[4] Included among

ocers taken prisoner were commanders of both the 6th
and 12th armies, four corps commanders, and 11 division
commanders.

4 After the encirclement

As the pocket was eliminated, the tanks of Panzergruppe
1 turned north, and attacked toward Kiev on the orders
to assist Panzergruppe 2 in closing another encirclement
around that city. The Crimean objective was for a time
left to the eld armies; the rst of many times when Hitler
would change his mind about strategic objectives of the
Army Groups.
The Stavka used the respite oered by the German refocusing of Panzergruppe 1 to re-establish its front using
the 9th Coastal Army (independent) and either reforming
the destroyed armies, or bringing into line reserve 37th
and 56th armies from the interior military districts, with
the 38th Army eventually left to hold an over-stretched
Kharkov sector of the Front.

5 Citations and notes

[1] Lderrey, p.32
[2] Schobert was killed 11 September 1941 when his plane
landed in a mineeld
[3] including 80th Rie Division, II formation, and 139th Rie Division; Craig Crofoot, Armies of the Bear
[4] Life magazine, p.411, Steinberg

6 References
Lderrey, Ernest, (Col.), Germanys Defeat in the
East: The Soviet Armies at War, 19411945, The
War Oce, London, 1955
Steinberg, Julien, Verdict of Three Decades: From
the Literature of Individual Revolt Against Soviet
Communism: 1917-1950, Ayer Publishing, 1971

7 See also
Battle of Kiev

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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Battle of Uman Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Uman?oldid=662275968 Contributors: Bryan Derksen, Bobby D. Bryant,

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