Leningrad: The Advance of Panzer Group 4, 1941

by W. Chales de Beaulieu, Linden Lyons (Translator)

Translated into English for the first A personal account of Operation Barbarossa by the Panzer Group 4 chief of general staff.   When Operation Barbarossa launched, Army Group North was tasked with the operational objective of Leningrad. But between them and the city lay eight hundred kilometers of Baltic states, eighteen to twenty infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, and eight or nine mechanized Red Army brigades.   To succeed, it was apparent they would have to race through to the western Dvina and establish a bridgehead before the Russians exploited this natural feature to organize a defensive front. Panzer Group 4, which included LVI Panzer Corps and XLI Panzer Corps, was to lead the way. By the end of the first day, the group had pushed seventy kilometers into enemy territory. Red counterattacks on their unprotected flanks slowed them down, resulting in the tank battle of Raseiniai, but the group managed to capture Dünaburg on the Western Dvina on June 26, with a bridgehead established shortly thereafter. The group then pushed northeast through Latvia to the Stalin Line. In mid-July, General Erich Hoepner was preparing to push the last one hundred kilometers to Leningrad. But Wilhelm von Leeb, commander of the army group, had other plans for the group and the advance did not continue for several more weeks.   In Leningrad—first published in German in 1961 and now translated into English for the first time—W. Chales de Beaulieu, Panzer Group 4 chief of staff, offers a detailed account of the group’s advance, as well as an assessment of the fighting, an examination of the limitations imposed on Army Group North and their effects on the operation, and the lessons to be learned from their experiences in the Baltic States, concluding with a discussion of whether Leningrad could ever have been taken in the first place.

233 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 30, 2020

Reviews

[Jose wilhelms Ventura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book in a series written for the United States Army. Several German military personnel participated in this work with the aim of understanding German operations on the Russian front, in World War II. It is a very technical material and to be studied next to a map. In this book, the chief of staff of Panzer Group 4, who reports on the operations of this unit in the attack on the Soviet Union and the beginning of the siege on Leningrad. What draws attention is the difficulties of this unit in fulfilling its mission within the large unit where it is inserted, the Army Group North, passing through pairs of other units, in addition to the difficulties of the ground, supplies and resistance of the Soviet Army. We already know that Leningrad was surrounded but never taken. And Panzer Group 4 was transferred to the attack on Moscow. It is worth reading for those who like military history and must be accompanied by reading more modern books, especially those that have recently made use of the newly opened Russian archives.