The Southwestern Theater

1943-45

By: Kirill Moskalenko

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 23 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

This second volume of Kirill Moskalenko's memoir of his Great Patriotic War begins with the Battle of Kursk. Don't be put off by the first chapter. Moskalenko's Fortieth Army played a relatively minor role in the battle, and I believe he added a bit of unnecessary detail. There is a fairly good and cursory exposition on Voronezh Front operations during the battle in a verbatim report from General Vatutin, commander of Voronezh Front and Moskalenko's immediate superior.

Moskalenko's small role at Kursk was not a function of Soviet Supreme Command's opinion of his abilities. The Germans attacked in other sectors. The Soviet counteroffensive that followed the defeat of Operation Citadel was considered in the Soviet Union to be a continuation of the battle. Moskalenko won the confidence of Vatutin with resolute operations as Soviet armies advanced to Kiev and the Dnepr.

The Southwestern Theater as a military formation no longer existed after mid-1942, but the geographical theater of operations certainly did. Moskalenko participated in—

—The forcing of the Dnepr in late 1943.

—The liberation of Kiev in his new posting as commander of Thirty-Eighth Army, which he stayed with until the end of the war.

—The continuation of the Kiev Offensive as forces passed into Right-Bank Ukraine, west of the Dnepr.

—The Zhitomir—Berdichev Offensive. After Kursk, the Wehrmacht was beaten. This operation emphasized the point. Manstein's Army Group South was savaged.

—In the Proskurov—Chernovtsy Operation, German forces were driven back, in some places all the way to the borders of the Soviet Union. Their strategic defensive front in the southwestern theater was split and would never be whole again.

—The L'vov—Sandomierz Operation. The ousting of the Germans from the USSR was almost complete. Moskalenko lost some favor in this action. He was, perhaps unjustly, blamed for the failures of his army in the battles associated with the Koltov Corridor. His explanation of what happened convinced me. What do you think?

Fair or not, leaders tend to exploit success. Military leaders certainly do. Russians, in the Soviet era and at other times, take that to extremes. Moskalenko was harshly judged for his actions in the L'vov—Sandomierz Operation. Meanwhile, success was being had to the north, in Operation Bagration, or the Belorussian Offensive, as the Soviets generally called it. Thirty-Eighth Army never again played a lead role in the war effort, though Moskalenko still found himself in some interesting and pivotal fights.

—The Carpathian—Dukla Operation, culminating in the Battle of Dukla Pass. This is a primer on why you do not want to make war in the Carpathian Mountains. The two chapters dealing with this are worthwhile simply as a lesson in geography. There is much more than that.

After Dukla Pass, Moskalenko's Thirty-Eighth Army was shuffled off to Fourth Ukrainian Front and given the largely thankless task of beating the Germans in southern Poland and Czechoslovakia. However, there were no unimportant theaters in this war. It seems Moskalenko kept his attention on business. He certainly writes about it in detail.
Soviet histories of World War II are generally ignored, for understandable reasons. The propaganda is egregious. As I point out in my foreword, it requires some critical thinking to see the worth of this account.

Germany lost. How did that happen?