Kamenets-Podolsky pocket

Battle of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Pocket
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Date 25 March–15 April 1944 Location Kamianets-Podilskyi / Tarnopol, USSR Result Tactical Soviet Victory
Belligerents
Germany	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Erich von Manstein (Army Group South) Hans-Valentin Hube (1st Panzer Army)	Georgi Zhukov Nikolai Vatutin (1st Ukrainian Front) Ivan Koniev (2nd Ukrainian Front)
Strength
200,000 men	500,000 men
Casualties and losses
1st Panzer Army: 14,242 men KIA and MIA unknown number of POWs	50,000+ 399 tanks and assault guns 280 guns

The Battle of the Kamianets-Podilskyi pocket (or Battle of Tarnopol) was a Soviet effort to surround and destroy the Wehrmacht's 1st Panzer Army of Army Group South. The envelopment occurred in March 1944 on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. The Red Army successfully created the pocket, trapping some 200,000 German soldiers inside. Under the command of General Hans-Valentin Hube and with the direction of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, German forces in the pocket were able to fight their way out by mid-April. This breakout is sometimes referred to as Hube's Pocket.

In February 1944, the 1st Panzer Army—commanded by Generaloberst Hans-Valentin Hube—consisted of four Corps, three of which were Panzer Corps (comprising 8 Panzer and 1 Panzergrenadier divisions). Together with attached Army units the 1st Panzer Army included over 200,000 troops and was the most powerful formation of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's Army Group South. The formation's III Panzer Corps had recently fought extensively in operations to thwart an earlier Soviet attempt to trap and destroy two corps in the Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket,

Realizing the significance of the 1st Panzer Army, Soviet Marshal Georgi Zhukov began planning to bring about its destruction with hopes of creating a collapse of the entire South-Eastern Front. Zhukov planned a multi-Front offensive, involving his own 1st and Marshal Ivan Konev's 2nd Ukrainian Front. This force of over eleven armies, including two air armies, was to attempt to outflank and encircle Hube's Army, and, in a repeat of the Battle of Stalingrad, reduce the resulting pocket (in German, kessel) until all troops in it have surrendered. The operations were to take place on the extreme north and south of the Army Group South's front.

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