Deep snow blanketed the steppes surrounding the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov on February 6, 1943. The soldiers of Major Kurt Meyer’s reconnaissance battalion of SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler shivered from the cold. The half-tracks and assault guns were concealed in a belt of woods outside the village of Malinovka on the east bank of the Donets River not far from the railroad depot at Chuguyev. Outside the wind howled. Hardly a word was spoken by the men as they watched tanks and infantry at the head of a Russian column work their way slowly toward them.
Meyer had instructed the crews of the dispersed vehicles not to fire until he gave the order. Meyer had been sent across the Donets to cover the retreat of the remnants of the German 298th and 320th Infantry Divisions, which had been shredded by the spearheads of Soviet armies participating in a major attack along the entire southern sector of the Eastern Front.
That morning as many as 1,400 survivors of the two decimated German divisions had marched through Malinovka on their way to the safety of the main German line at Chuguyev. The survivors were a pitiful sight. Many had fingers and toes black from frostbite. Swaddled in blankets and rags in an effort to protect themselves from snow squalls and subfreezing temperatures, the half dead soldiers bore little resemblance to Meyer’s panzergrenadiers, who had arrived at the front by train less than a week earlier.
