How exactly did the Germans retreat from the Russians from about 1943 onwards when the Russians had the upper hand?

Did they abandon positions? or did they fight for every inch of soil? if they did fight for every inch, what were their tactics? did they use delaying tactics? or did they use artillery? also, did they use a any tank support after Kursk, or did they not have enough?

I want to know this, because I fail to see how any German officer could hold up the Russian advance without proper tank support, even in fortified positions. The only tactic I can think of was strategic use of artillery against their tanks and infantry. Because by then the Russians had air superiority right? do the German aircraft could make attacks against the enemy easily.

I know might sound like a rookie here, but my expertise is mostly the western front, not the eastern one.

Some very general points : The germans used assault guns to delay the Soviet advance,these were more effective than tanks;aircraft were not that important in the east;every Soviet advance had to stop after a certaintime because the Soviet army was not motorised and the tanks had to wait for support and protection by infantry and for supplies;

i read that the retreat tactic was like this "through sheer brilliant german intelligance the germans would wait for a known russian assault and then as soon as the assault is launched the germans would retreat thus wasting russian preparation time and materials" .....LOL ahhhh i dont believe it though. this is the other tactic wich seems more credible. because of hitlers no retreat stance individual armies would make fortresses out of the area they hold when the russians come they hold and cause as much nuisance until german relief comes. now german relief never usually came. i read of a pocket of 200 german soldiers trapped behind enemy lines....nobody came....they vanished literally they werent in the russian POW records. as for panzers, since they were scarce they were grouped and used to plug gaps in the lines. air support ..cant help you there buddy sorry. so thats what i know.

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In Tigers in the Mud, Otto tells the reader of how his Tiger's would be used a shields for the withdrawing infantry. He had great success in accomplishing such tasks using only 4 Tigers.

There were instances however, in which the Germans were not as organized as some would like to perceive. In Bagration, the assault came with such speed that the Germans simply did not have the time to organize a withdraw and ran where ever they could to escape the Red Army advance.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

von Mellenthin's "Panzer Battles" covers "plan" withdrawals. He describes the German Supreme Command could never decided on a withdrawal while the going was good. It made up its mind either too late or when a retreat had been forced upon the German armies and was already in full swing. He describes as the problems being in orgainzation and descipline in the rear and no so much on pulling back the frontline soldiers.

He goes into detail about that but your question concerns the frontline sooooooo....it was essential to keep the pull out a secret and to conceal the actual retreat as long as possible. The frontline soldiers must move during the night without making any noise with their first stop being as far back as possible. By daybreak, all troops should be in their assigned positions for that day.

That was under 'ideal' conditions. Usually, a retreat was forced after a lost battle. In such a case, Units moved to the rear as fast as possible, not stopping during the next day and those who fell behind were left to fend for themselves. In either situation, intersections had to be controlled, preferably with officers (higher ranking the better) to keep descipline. Engineers assigned to bridges to guard and prepare them for demolition.

He states that luckily for them, the Red Air Force was not as organized and flexible to bring forward fields into rapid operation so harrassment from the air was minimal thus they frequently "got away" with tightly packed convoys, travelling bumper to bumper and presenting superb targets from the air. This is where the staff officers come to play with most being at crucial points to ensure things are going as planned and if not, they are there to take proper action.

So it seems that organized withdrawals did not need artillery support as the frontline soldiers would have already been pulled out and on their way back. It seems that most of the time during the latter years, when a battle is considered lost, the frontline soldiers merely fought on while the rear is pulling out and then break battle and make haste far enough to out drive the Russians and their support system.

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I'm currently reading Hubert Meyer's History of the 12th Waffen SS Division and I'm at the section where he is describing operations in the East when they were in Hungary. Just got to a section where they are retreated due to the Russians breaking through on the flanks. He describes a hedgehog type of withdrawal where a couple of tanks will stop and guard the retreat. Another group will stand guard further back while the first group pulls back and passes them to set up guard further back.

He also descibed an incident where the Russians were moving so fast that they reached an ammunition dump at the time when a German convoy just pulled in to take as much of the ammo as possible. Only two trucks were loaded only to burn because the only road out came under Russian fire. The dump was blown up by the 5 man German staff assigned to it and walked back towards their rear. They made it. This was in March 45'.

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More or less the retreat was full of German pockets of resistance and the men in them lost for nothing as KIA or POW´s, as Hitler refused to give any retreat orders. In the final moments the troops tried to escape through the Soviet lines but usually the distance to the German lines was so far that not many made it back. Just to name a couple: Krim ( they escaped by boats who could), Korsun, Bagration, Courland, Budapest,Jassy–Kishinev, Halbe...

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Air power was essential in delaying the soviet advance. In 1943, before Germany had lost air superiority over Europe, the soviet advance was done with massive casualties, the soviets lost 5 million men to reclaim half of Ukraine.