Army Group South, proposed another attempt towards Stalingrad. To that end, entrained on 24 December; however, by the time it arrived at Simovniki on 30 December, the Wehrmacht was retreating westwards. The Wiking Division was tasked with covering the retreat of Kleist's First Panzer Army back across the Don. Wiking held Simovniki for seven days, covering the retreat of several large German formations, taking high casualties in the process.. The division escaped through the Rostov gap and took up a new defensive position at Stalino on 05 February. Ukraine Battles 1943-1944 In early 1943, the division fell back to Ukraine south of Kharkov, recently abandoned by the II SS Panzer Corps commanded by Paul Hausser. In the remaining weeks of February, the Corps, including Wiking, engaged Mobile Group Popov, the major Soviet armoured force named after Markian Popov during the Third Battle of Kharkov. As the post-Stalingrad Soviet offensive exhausted itself, Manstein was able to stabilize the front. In 1943, Herbert Gille was appointed to command the division. The SS Regiment Nordland, along with its commander Fritz von Scholz, were removed from the division and used as the nucleus for the new SS Division Nordland. The Finnish Volunteer Battalion was also withdrawn and they were replaced by the Estonian Battalion Narwa. In the summer of 1943, the division, along with the 23rd Panzer Division, formed the reserve for Manstein's Army Group in Operation Citadel. Immediately following the German failure in the Battle of Kursk, the Red Army launched two counter-offensives, Operation Kutuzov and Operation Rumyantsev. Wiking, together with the SS Divisions Totenkopf and Das Reich, was sent to the Mius-Bogodukhov sector. The Soviets took Kharkov on 23 August and began advancing towards the Dnieper. In October the division was pulled out to a quiet sector of the line just as the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive overtook Army Group South. In November 1943 the division participated in Operation Harvest Festival, engaging in the mass murder of thousands of Jews at Majdanek concentration camp. In the aftermath of the fall of Kiev in late December 1943, the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts of the Red Army encircled several German divisions during the Battle of the Korsun–Cherkassy Pocket in January 1944. Over 60,000 soldiers, including the Wiking division, were trapped along the Dnieper River. Roughly half of German forces broke out of the encirclement. Similar to other formations in the pocket, Wiking suffered heavy casualties