The Reduction of the Smolensk Pocket, 1–6 August

While XXIV Motorized and VII and IX Army Corps of Guderian’s Second Panzer Group were eliminating Group Kachalov from the Red Army’s order of battle, the final chapter in the German reduction of the Smolensk encirclement was being written to the north. By 1 August German forces were tightening their noose around the Soviet 16th and 20th Armies, which the Germans had virtually encircled northwest, north, and northeast of Smolensk in mid-July. East and northeast of the city, 12th, 7th, 20th, and 19th Panzer Divisions of Third Panzer Group’s XXXIX Motorized Corps, reinforced by 106th Infantry Division and 900th Motorized (Lehr) Brigade, still manned an outer encirclement line, which extended roughly 100 kilometers northward from the Solov’evo crossing over the Dnepr River, 30 kilometers east of Smolensk, along the Vop’ River through Iartsevo to the Chernyi Ruchei region, 25-30 kilometers southwest of Belyi.

See Maps 51 and 52. The situation, 2300, 1 August 1941 and the Smolensk Pocket, 1 August 1941.

Southeast of Smolensk, 17th Panzer Division from Second Panzer Group’s XXXXVII Motorized Corps was trying to erect the outer encirclement line southward from 7th Panzer Division’s right flank just south of Solov’evo southward across the Dnepr River to the northern approaches to El’nia. However, despite 17th Panzer’s best efforts to link up with 7th Panzer to form a contiguous outer encirclement line, the resistance by Soviet Group Iartsevo prevented the division from doing so. As a result, a 10-kilometer-wide gap in the outer encirclement line extended from just north of Ratchino on the Dnepr River southward to Malinovka, a village on the river’s western bank. This gap formed a virtual lifeline between the encircled 16th and 20th Armies and the Western Front’s main front lines east of Smolensk, through which reinforcements, fuel, and ammunition flowed to the encircled forces and through which those forces could withdraw to safety if ordered to do so.

Beginning on 23 July, the Soviet Western Front launched a counteroffensive against the Germans’ outer encirclement line in an attempt to destroy the so-called German Dukhovshchina Grouping, recapture Smolensk, and, when those efforts failed, to withdraw its encircled armies to the east. As a result, four operational groups formed by the Western Front’s 29th, 30th, and 19th Armies, cooperating with special Operational Group Iartsevo, pounded the German outer encirclement line in attack after attack in an attempt to destroy German forces manning the outer encirclement line, destroy all or a part of the German forces, and rescue the encircled 16th and 20th Armies. By 1 August, however, the four operational groups, whose forces were poorly trained, barely cohesive, and lacked adequate artillery and armor support, had managed to register only limited gains (5-10 kilometers in some sectors), although they did prevent the Germans from closing the so-called Solov’evo corridor. By this time, it was also apparent that the encircled forces would perish if they were not reinforced or withdrawn from the Smolensk pocket.