page_title: Nikopol–Krivoi Rog Offensive
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Nikopol–Krivoi Rog Offensive / Background
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Erich von Manstein Generalmajor Erich von Manstein, Kommandeur der 18. Division. [Erich von Manstein (Porträt)] Abgebildete Personen: Manstein, Erich von: Generalfeldmarschall, Ritterkreuz (RK), Heer, Deutschland (PND 11857731X)
context_page_description: The Nikopol–Krivoi Rog Offensive was an offensive by the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front and elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front against the German 6th Army in the area of Nikopol and Krivoi Rog in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in central Ukraine between 30 January and 29 February 1944. It took place on the Eastern Front of World War II and was part of the wider Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive, a Soviet attack against Army Group South to retake the rest of Ukraine that fell to Germany in 1941.
  Following the Soviet advance to the Dnieper in the Battle of the Dnieper during late 1943, German forces managed to hold to the Nikopol bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper, the area of manganese ore mines of crucial importance to German war production that Adolf Hitler insisted on holding.
  In November and December, the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts conducted multiple unsuccessful attacks against the bridgehead, a salient centered around the supply base and rail junction of Apostolovo, and German troops in the Krivoi Rog area.
context_section_description: Following the Soviet advance in the Battle of the Dnieper in late 1943, the German 6th Army, commanded by Generaloberst Karl-Adolf Hollidt, escaped a threatened Soviet encirclement and retreated to the Krivoi Rog area, with its IV and XXIX Army Corps clinging on to the Nikopol bridgehead over the Dnieper, the easternmost protrusion of a salient centred on the key rail junction of Apostolovo. On 3 November, these two corps were temporarily transferred to the 1st Panzer Army, and within weeks they became part of Group Schörner under the command of General der Gebirgstruppe Ferdinand Schörner along with the XVII Army Corps to the north. During November and December, the 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts launched a series of unsuccessful assaults against the Nikopol bridgehead and the Krivoi Rog area, which formed a salient. The 3rd Ukrainian Front directed its assaults against the northern part of the salient, while the 4th Ukrainian Front moved against the southern part.
  Since its capture by the Germans in 1941, the rich deposits of manganese in the area of Nikopol had been used in Germany for the production of high-strength steel. Adolf Hitler repeatedly stressed the crucial importance of this area, telling his commanders that the "Loss of Nikopol would mean the end of the war." The Nikopol bridgehead also held operational significance because it could serve as a springboard for an assault to relieve German troops trapped in Crimea, and Hitler refused demands by Army Group South commander Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein for its evacuation. As a result, the bridgehead was heavily fortified, with three lines of trenches in its first defensive line, strengthened by barbed wire belts and minefields. All heights and settlements immediately behind the front were turned into fortified strongpoints. These positions were what remained of the fortified German Dnieper line.
  Despite Hitler's obsession with the bridgehead, the mining of manganese ore ceased during the winter of 1943 and 1944 and the previously mined stocks "could not be moved" due to a lack of transport, according to 6th Army chief of staff Generalleutnant Max Bork. On 1 January, 6th Army was transferred from Army Group A, which held the southernmost part of Ukraine west of the Dnieper, to Army Group South, whose sector ran from north of Krivoi Rog to the Pripet marshes in the northernmost portion of Ukraine. Around this time, Manstein transferred the 1st Panzer Army to the northern sector, leaving a few of its infantry divisions behind in the Nikopol bridgehead; these joined the 6th Army. On 4 January 1944, Manstein flew to Führer Headquarters expressly to persuade Hitler to allow a withdrawal from Nikopol and Crimea in order to shorten the front, but his request was denied. 
  There were also formidable natural barriers in the area – the Kamenka River in the 3rd Ukrainian Front's sector, and the Dnieper in the 4th Ukrainian Front's sector. Behind the German front line in the Nikopol bridgehead was the marshy floodplain of the Dnieper, which rarely froze in the winter. The only exits from the bridgehead were a temporary bridge in the northern sector east of Nikopol and a pair of one-lane pontoon bridges at the far southern end of the bridgehead at Velikaya (Bolshaya) Lepetikha. The remainder of the 6th Army sector, facing north and slightly east, stretched between positions 18 miles (29 km) north of Krivoi Rog and 30 miles (48 km) north of Apostolovo, where the sole rail line supplying the army branched north and towards Nikopol. The positions ran across open steppe divided at right angles by numerous ravines and the watercourses of five major rivers.
  A single hard-surfaced road passed through the army's sector, designated Through Road IV, but it was unusable due to its proximity to the frontline, except for a small area at Krivoi Rog. Due to a total lack of suitable road building materials, the German forces were unable to construct hard-surfaced roads. As a result, when the roads turned to mud in the wet winter weather, the railway and tracked vehicles were the so
caption: Army Group South commander Erich von Manstein, 1938
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