3 April 1942. East Prussia
Generalfeldmarschall Fedor von Bock (Army Group South) sat down with Franz Halder, Chief of Staff of the German Army High Command (OKH) to discuss his plan for a mid-spring offensive. Von Bock’s army group would be given the mission of clearing the Soviets from the Caucasus, taking the vital oil fields located there, and capturing Stalingrad.
Before the fullness of the plan could be implemented, there was the matter of a bulge in the line south of Kharkov, with the town of Izyum at its heart. The Red Army had pushed forward during their winter offensive, and if Army Group South was to capture Stalingrad, this bulge would need to be pinched off first.
Von Bock had been working on a plan, codenamed Fridericus, which envisioned two prongs of an attack along the west bank of the river Donets. He had proposed Paulus’s 6th Army striking from the north, while Eberhard von Mackensen’s III Panzer Corps, part of Army Group von Kleist, would attack from the south.
When presented with the plan, Hitler and Halder wanted the attack to take place on the eastern bank of the Donets. Having flown in to Hitler’s HQ, von Bock and Halder were trying to work out the details of what would be known as Fridericus II. Halder mentioned that one of the few advantages of the loss of the Deutsches Afrika-Korps was that there were some 360 panzers available as replacements for losses during Operation Barbarossa, that otherwise would have been sent to Rommel. The benefit in Petrol Oil and Lubricants, as well as ammunition and, not least in men, added the equivalent of almost two whole Panzer Divisions available to the forces in Russia. The other piece for good news for von Bock had been the addition of II. Fliegerkorps that the Fuhrer had decided was of more use in Russia than the Mediterranean. So far their primary focus was on supporting the attack in Crimea.
Von Bock’s plan to collapse the Soviet bulge was estimated to begin at the end of April, the first week in May at the latest, as always, depending as much on the weather as anything else.