KNIGHT'S CROSS AT CHERKASSY: *
Hero at Cherkassy 2/44*
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Date:  February 1944*                     
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Battle Type: German and Russian meeting engagement*
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Design: CB Blackard*
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Battle Description: By February 1944, the WIKING, now designated as 
a panzer division, was fighting for its very existence.  Surrounded at Cherkassy with other units of the XI and XXXXII Corps, the division was forced to fight from all sides as Soviet forces attacked mercilessly. Heroic deeds were required to hold the pocket long enough for outside forces to break through or for the surrounded units to break out.*
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At the village of Novo Buda, Stubaf. Kurt Schumacher of the panzer battalion earned the Knight's Cross for his heroic deeds.  When Soviet forces broke into the southern part of the village with 15 tanks, Schumacher, with only two tanks 
of his own, launched an attack to eject the invaders.  Ten of the Red tanks were destroyed and the remaining fled.  The next morning the Soviets attacked again, this time with eleven tanks, but Schumacher refused to yield.  Seven more Soviet tanks were destroyed and the village was held long enough to permit a withdrawal.*
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Sources:  Strassner, "European Volunteers"; "Panzergrenadiere der Panzerdivision 'Wiking'"; "Verweht sind die Spuren"; Mabire and Lefevre, "Leon Degrelle et la Legion Wallonie 1941-1945"*



   

