page_title: Battle of Rostov (1941)
section_title: Rostov Defensive Operation
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Rostov (1941) / Rostov Defensive Operation
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Wkroczenie wojsk niemieckich do Rostowa. Kolumna czołgów PzKpfw III przejeżdża przez przejazd kolejowy.
context_page_description: The Battle of Rostov (1941) was a battle of the Eastern Front of World War II, fought around Rostov-on-Don between the Army Group South of Nazi Germany and the Southern Front of the Soviet Union.
  The battle comprised three phases: the German Sea of Azov Offensive Operation by Army Group South, the Soviet Rostov Defensive Operation by the Southern Front, and the Rostov Offensive Operation executed by the same Soviet Front.
  After forcing their way across the Mius river on 17 November, the German forces captured 10,000 Soviet troops and took Rostov on 21 November. Six days later the Southern Front, reinforced with the newly raised 37th Army, counterattacked from the north and threatened to surround the overstretched German III Motorized Army Corps. Rundstedt then ordered a retreat to the Mius line from Rostov to prevent the encirclement, which prompted Hitler to immediately fire him. Rundstedt's successor Walther von Reichenau confirmed the retreat order with the backing of the Army High Command Chief of Staff Franz Halder and Hitler relented. The Red Army retook Rostov on 28 November. It was the first successful major Soviet counteroffensive of the war.
context_section_description: The Soviet counter-attack delivered as part of the general Donbass-Rostov Strategic Defensive Operation (29 September 1941 – 16 November 1941) also forced Rundstedt's Army Group South to order his 1st Panzer Army to manoeuvre in order to be better placed to counter any further Soviet thrusts in the Romanian sector of the front, and also to attempt an encirclement of the two Soviet Armies, which was partly successful in the area of Chernigovka where on 8 October the commander of the 18th Soviet Army, General-Lieutenant A.K. Smirnov, was killed by artillery fire on his command post in the village of Popovka during the breakout attempt between 5 and 10 October 1941. This was interpreted by Hitler as such a success that he declared "The battle of the Sea of Azov is over" on 11 October before the troops had even reached their objective. As a commemorative gesture, Hitler issued the order to redesignate the Leibstandarte Brigade as SS Division Leibstandarte.
  The German 11th Army was ordered back to Crimea to effect the breakthrough of the Isthmus of Perekop.
  Perceiving that the way to Rostov and the Caucasus was open, Hitler issued an order transferring the objective from the 11th Army to the 1st Panzer Army and attaching to it ill-prepared Romanian 3rd Army, the Italian Alpine Corps, and the Slovakian Motorised Brigade.
  During the subsequent reorganisation of Axis forces the III Panzer Corps and XIV Panzer Corps took the lead, supported by the XLIX Mountain Corps recently arrived from Crimea.
  By 17 October 1941 the Mius River was crossed by the 14th Panzer Division and Taganrog was captured by German troops, with the mountain troops entering Stalino, forcing the newly formed 12th Army into a renewed withdrawal. However, the autumn rains had begun, and the Rasputitsa ("roadlessness") had set in slowing the 1st Panzer Army's advance to "meter by meter".  This meant that the leading German units did not reach the outskirts of Rostov until mid-November, having lost contact with the Red Army in the meantime.
  The assault on Rostov began on 17 November, and on 21 November the Germans took the city. However, the German lines were over-extended, and Kleist's warnings that his left flank was vulnerable and that his tanks were ineffective in the freezing weather were ignored.
caption: Column of German Panzer III tanks in Rostov, November 1941.
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