The Brutal WW2 Clash that Cost 280,000 Soldiers vs. 20,000

After the catastrophic defeat of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, the Soviet juggernaut awakened, ready to crush the Germans and push them back to the gates of Berlin. In early 1943, the fate of Germany and the entire war hinged on Operation Barbarossa—they had to stop the Soviet advance at any cost.

Field Marshal von Manstein, renowned for his strategic brilliance, orchestrated a counteroffensive so daring it could turn the tide of the war. Both forces braced for a monumental clash as Dzerzhinsky Square in the vital Soviet city of Kharkov erupted in flames and smoke, becoming a battlefield for the third time since 1941.

Under von Manstein's command, the elite Waffen SS Panzer Corps achieved the impossible by besieging the city. Simultaneously, Panzer Grenadiers stormed the urban landscape, breaching bunkers, homesteads, and apartments, engaging Soviet defenders in merciless house-to-house combat.

Among the desperate Soviet defenders was Yang Kyoungjong, one of the unluckiest soldiers of World War 2—a Korean man who had fought for the Japanese, Germans, and Soviets. With no knowledge of Russian or German, he faced the vengeful might of the Third Reich. As grenades exploded and relentless machine-gun fire rained down, Kyoungjong realized that, despite all the horrors he had witnessed in his ill-fated career, the Third Battle of Kharkov was the most brutal and ruthless encounter he had ever endured. Surviving it would be an ordeal.