On the 17th February 1944, Soviet forces finally close the Korsun pocket and take 18,000 German POWs; 28,000 Germans attempt a break out of the pocket, in an attempt to reach German lines.

On the 17th February 1944, Soviet forces finally close the Korsun pocket and take 18,000 German POWs; 28,000 Germans attempt a break out of the pocket, in an attempt to reach German lines.

During a violent blizzard on the night of Feb.16/17, five divisions of General Hube's 8th Army, including the 5th SS Division 'Viking' and the Belgian Volunteer Brigade ' Wallonie ', made a last desperate bid to break out of the Russian encirclement around the towns of Korsun and Shandrerovka in the lower Dnieper west of Kiev.

At 4am, forming up in two columns of around 14,000 each, they flocked into two parallel ravines in the surrounding countryside, and where the two ravines met, the troops then emerged into open country and headed out towards Lysyanka.

There, disaster struck as the Soviet troops, under General Konev, were waiting. Soon after 6am, the slaughter began. Soviet tanks drove into the German columns crushing hundreds under their tracks.

Fleeing in panic, the troops were then confronted by units of Cossack cavalry who started hacking them to pieces with their sabres, hands were lopped off of those who approached with their arms raised in surrender. There was no time to take prisoners and the carnage continued till it was all over.

In the short space of three hours, over 20,000 German soldiers lay dead. Another 8,000, who had fled the scene, were rounded up during the next few days and taken prisoner.

On February 18, 224 guns fired a 20-shot salute in Moscow to celebrate the annihilation of the Korsun pocket. Soviet propaganda boasted of twice the actual German casualties and inflated German tank losses by 200 percent. Stalin credited Konev and the 2nd Ukrainian Front and promoted him to Marshal of the Soviet Union.

The gap between the 8th Army and 1st Panzer Army was resealed by a counter-attack of the Panzer divisions.

The Korsun battle had hit the Germans hard. The divisions of Group Stemmermann needed to be rebuilt and refitted.

The Soviets had broken the German hold on the Dnieper and pushed the enemy further west. High Soviet losses in exchange for victory would continue until the end of the war.

Another nine million Soviet soldiers would die, be wounded, or be taken prisoner, before the Red Army stood victorious in the ruins of Berlin.