![]() With the enemy threatening to overrun the German lines, the two stricken vehicles had to be destroyed where they both stood. To compound matters, two of the Panzers had to be abandoned following an incident with a enemy tank ditch. Their arrival right in the thick of the Soviet advance had caught them completely off guard half of the Tigers that had arrived at the front were unserviceable and in need of repair. Right from the start, SS-Hauptsturmführer Kling’s Panzers were at a disadvantage. The focal point was the town of Brusilov, located between the city of Zhytomyr and the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, which had fallen into Red Army hands less than a week earlier. The new arrivals had little time to organise themselves effectively once they had reached their assembly point, for no sooner had the Panzers rolled off the train they would quite literally land right in the middle of the battle. The Ukrainian city of Khar’kov had been retaken by the Soviets, and the Red Army was now storming relentlessly through the Ukraine and on towards Germany itself.Īt the end of October 1943 the Tigers of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler were loaded up on four trains to be transported to the front, a ten-day journey that would take them north into Austria and then east across Poland to the western Ukraine. By the time Michael Wittmann had arrived on the Eastern Front for what was the third and final time, the situation had gone from bad to worse for the German leadership. ![]()
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