The Battles of Kryvyi Rih and Nikopol on the Background of the German-Soviet Confrontation on the Dnieper in Autumn 1943 — Winter 1944

Abstract

Within the scope of the offered publication, the author states that the battles of Kryvyi Rih and Nikopol are a component of the Battle of the Dnieper, as their course is connected with the elimination of the Nikopol bridgehead, the overcoming of the river south of the Dnieper, the expansion of bridgeheads on its right bank, and the establishment of Soviet control over the Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih industrial basins German-Soviet confrontation in the Kryvyi Rih and Nikopol directions is much wider in time than is generally considered in the historiography of the war, and covers the events not from the end of January to the end of February 1944, but dates back to October 15, 1943 — February 29, 1944. The researcher proves that the extremely difficult and long-term struggle of the opponents for Kryvyi Rih and Nikopol was due to two reasons — a possible Wehrmacht counterattack in the lower reaches of the Dnieper to unblock the 17th German Army in the Crimea and the need to control iron ore and manganese ore deposits, as the main resources for the defense industry of both the USSR and Germany. The author emphasizes that the battle of Kryvyi Rih and Nikopol lasted two and a half times longer than the “world-historical” battle of Kursk. Within the scope of the article, the issue of revising the postulates rooted in Soviet and post-Soviet historical science about the turning point in the German-Soviet confrontation on the Eastern Front, which allegedly took place near Stalingrad and the Kursk salient in the first half — the middle of 1943, is raised. The article suggests that the Red Army actually succeeded in breaking the German military machine not at the Kursk Offensive, but during the Battle of the Dnieper. The study was prepared on the basis of previously unknown (once secret) archival documents and materials published in the post-Soviet period, which makes the arguments and conclusions presented here relevant.