The Nazis- a Warning From History

by Laurence Rees

  Viktor Strazdovski sums up the battle succinctly: ‘What happened there is like a mincing machine, when people are sent to a sure death, unarmed to fight a well-trained army.’ Walter Schaefer-Kehnert came to another conclusion: ‘A life wasn’t worth much for the Russians. Their deaths were not taken as seriously as with us . . . we were of the belief that there shouldn’t be much left of the Red Army now.’

  October 1941 marked the high point of Operation Barbarossa. Army Group Centre’s defeat of the Red Army at Vyazma and the nearby Battle of Bryansk had eliminated the last serious obstacle on the road to Moscow. In the Ukraine, after the capture of Kiev, Army Group South had consolidated its position and the bounty of the Soviet Union’s ‘breadbasket’ lay open to be plundered for the Reich. Outside Leningrad Army Group North had succeeded in cutting off the city and was attempting to starve out the inhabitants. It was the beginning of a 900-day siege of appalling suffering – in the winter of 1941–2 half a million people would die of starvation. All of this German military success led Hitler to declare at the Berlin Sportpalast that the Red Army ‘would never rise again’.35 Jodl remarked: ‘We have finally and without any exaggeration won the war!’ And Otto Dietrich, the Führer’s own Press Chief, stated: ‘For all military purposes Soviet Russia is done with.’36

  At Vyazma (combined with the Battle of Bryansk) the Germans took another 660,000 prisoners. The news from the front line filled Muscovites with despair – just 90,000 Soviet troops now defended the capital. In this despondent atmosphere Nikolay Ponomariev, Stalin’s telegraphist, was ordered to make contact with Zhukov, now back in favour as Commander of the Western Front, so that the Soviet leader could seek his advice. ‘I knew that the situation was really bad,’ says Ponomariev. ‘Life in Moscow had stopped, the Metro had stopped running. Stalin came up to me, said, “Hello”, as if nothing was happening, and asked, “What are we going to do? The Germans are pushing through to Moscow.” I didn’t expect such a question. I said, “We can’t let the Germans into Moscow, they have to be beaten.” “I think so too,” he said. “Now let’s ask Comrade Zhukov what is his opinion on the subject.”’

  Stalin listened for more than an hour and a half as Zhukov outlined what he needed for the defence of Moscow – tanks, artillery and, most importantly of all, rockets. ‘It was a really difficult conversation,’ says Ponomariev. ‘I learnt from that how short of supplies and undermanned our army was.’ Stalin told Zhukov that at least some of the supplies he needed were already on their way. Then, witnessed by Ponomariev, he asked Zhukov a question. ‘“Tell me, Georgy Konstantinovich, as a Communist to a Communist, are we going to hold Moscow or not?” Zhukov paused and then replied, “Comrade Stalin, if I get even part of the help that I asked for, we will hold Moscow.”’

  That was not the end of dramatic events on 16 October 1941, as ten minutes after the phone call to Zhukov one of Stalin’s senior aides told Ponomariev to pack all his equipment and get ready to leave. ‘Half an hour later,’ says Ponomariev, ‘I was visited by one of Stalin’s security guards, and he asked me if I was ready to go. “Where are we going?” I asked. And he said, “You’ll see when you go. Get ready and come with me.” There was a car waiting outside. We were driven away. Moscow was completely dark. The weather was wet. I saw we were heading for the railway station. I saw the armoured train and Stalin’s guards walking to and fro on the platform. It became clear to me that I would have to wait for Stalin and go into evacuation with him.’

  As Ponomariev sat on Stalin’s train, other Muscovites came to the conclusion that they too should prepare to leave. Maya Berzina, a thirty-one-year-old mother, was one of those who decided to flee. ‘We wondered what would happen if the government left,’ she says. ‘It must mean that Moscow would be surrendered. My husband was Jewish, I was half-Jewish and it meant we were doomed. My husband ran to the railway station and he was told that there would be no trains . . . he was advised to leave on foot. We had a three-year-old son and what could we do with him? He was too heavy to carry and too weak to walk. We realized there was also Moscow port, the southern port, and my husband went there and learnt there would be some ships. On that day of panic I saw how people began to show initiative – which was a long-forgotten thing. We’re used to directives. It turned out that the chief of the port began to sell tickets for a ship that was already mothballed for the winter and somehow we managed to get on it.’

  Maya Berzina was certain, on that day in mid-October, that the Germans would take Moscow: ‘We heard there were people who put up posters that said “Welcome”. There was panic. We were told by the conductor on the tram that she had seen Germans on another tram – I don’t know if it was true . . . Directors of shops opened their shops and were saying to people, “Take what you want. We don’t want the Germans to get these things.”’

  In this atmosphere of panic even Stalin himself considered deserting the capital. A secret document only just declassified, number 34 of the State Defence Committee, dated 15 October 1941, reveals just how serious Stalin believed the situation had become. It states that the State Defence Committee had resolved ‘To evacuate the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the top levels of Government . . . (Comrade Stalin will leave tomorrow or later, depending on the situation) . . . In the event of enemy forces arriving at the gates of Moscow, the NKVD – Comrade Beria and Comrade Shcherbakov – are ordered to blow up business premises, warehouses and institutions which cannot be evacuated, and all Underground railway electrical equipment.’

  This was perhaps the key moment of the whole war. For if Stalin had climbed on board his train and fled, Soviet resistance might have weakened decisively. Many believe that, even without Stalin, a combination of the oncoming winter weather and the problems of fighting inside Moscow, street to street, would have broken the Germans. But what that scenario underestimates is the psychological effect of Stalin’s presence on the population of Moscow. Many of those Russians we talked to emphasized the importance they placed on their leader’s continued presence in Moscow. In propaganda terms Stalin was the Soviet Union. If he was a coward, why couldn’t everyone be a coward? If he ran, why couldn’t they?

  Perhaps, even if Stalin had deserted the capital, the Germans would have been surrounded and trapped inside Moscow – that’s almost certainly what would have happened if Army Group Centre had moved on the Soviet capital in August whilst the threat from the flanks remained. But by October, with that danger eliminated, why couldn’t Moscow have become another Kiev or Minsk – cities that the Germans now held securely? Stalin’s apparent cowardice and his inability to prevent the growing panic in the capital would have severely damaged his authority. And once the Soviet leadership lost Moscow, the centre of the Soviet communications and transport network, what terms of peace might they have been prepared to negotiate?

  In the event, Stalin decided to stay in Moscow – but only after vacillating about what he should do. On 15 October, according to Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan, Stalin announced to them that he intended to leave Moscow ‘tomorrow morning’. But by the night of the 19th Stalin had resolved to stay. V.S. Pronin, President of the Moscow Soviet, was present at that decisive meeting. This is his account of what happened – a notable first-hand description of how Stalin conducted business: ‘When we assembled in the room leading to Stalin’s office, Beria set about persuading everyone that we should abandon Moscow. He argued that we should give up Moscow and set up a defensive line on the Volga. Malenkov supported him, Molotov mumbled his disagreement. In fact, I particularly remember Beria’s words: “But how are we going to defend Moscow? We have absolutely nothing at all. We have been overwhelmed and we are being shot down like partridges.” Then all of us went into Stalin’s office. Stalin came in as usual with his pipe. When we had settled down, Stalin asked: “Are we going to defend Moscow?” Everyone was silent. He waited a moment and then repeated his question. Again no reply. “Very well [said Stalin], we will ask individually.” Molotov replied first: “We will d
efend [Moscow].” All, including Beria, answered the same: “We will defend [Moscow].”’37

  So Stalin decided to stay in Moscow, which he insisted must be held by the harshest measures necessary. In order to counter the panic, he instituted a ‘state of siege’ in the capital from 20 October. A curfew was imposed from midnight to 5 a.m. and the task of enforcing law and order was entrusted to the NKVD.

  Vladimir Ogryzko commanded one of the NKVD units which tried to restore order in Moscow that October. ‘Panic was spread by diversionary groups and spies who had broken through Moscow’s defences,’ he says. ‘There were robberies – everything you can imagine happened – because as usual the people lost their heads . . . the ill-educated ones. The scum of the earth did show its face. It seeped through.’

  Men like Ogryzko interpreted Stalin’s order as giving them total power. ‘It isn’t peacetime,’ he says. ‘You’re not going to say, “Stop or I’ll shoot!” a thousand times before you shoot, nor are you going to shoot in the air. Of course not. You shoot them on the spot. It was a tough command. Anybody who resisted and didn’t obey orders on demand – especially if they moved away or opened their mouths – was eliminated on the spot without further ado. And that was considered a truly heroic act – you were killing the enemy.’

  The streets were jammed with fleeing Muscovites, towards whom Ogryzko had a similarly uncompromising attitude. ‘They were running away,’ he says, ‘they were marauders, bastards who thought they’d stay alive at the end of the day.’ He overturned their cars into the roadside ditches and ‘If the driver was crushed, well, even better . . . that wasn’t my responsibility.’

  A combination of Stalin’s decision to stay in Moscow and the imposition of this brutal ‘state of siege’ did indeed restore order. ‘These severe measures, these beautiful measures,’ says Vladimir Ogryzko, ‘are the essence and content of war. You cannot say that they go against human rights – they are neither cruel nor mad. It was right to execute the people who didn’t understand their position at a time which had become more cruel for their country . . . Had there not been such a tough order, there would have been total panic. Anything could have happened. Literally. It was a very wise, resolute and correct decision taken by the Defence Council and Stalin.’

  Outside the city the Germans, as the winter weather began, contemplated the final attack. They had travelled further and faster, and taken more enemy prisoners, than any invading army in history. The only problem was that, according to their original plan, by now they should already have won the war.

  6

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF WAR

  MORE CIVILIANS DIED in this war than any other in history. Around 13 million Soviet civilians alone lost their lives under German occupation (more than twice the entire population of Scotland).1 Set against the background of the Battle of Moscow and then the Nazi occupation of Soviet territory in 1942 and 1943, this chapter therefore confronts one of the most important questions of the conflict: why did this, of all wars, result in such a human catastrophe?

  A key reason, of course, was the character of the respective leaders. Both Hitler and Stalin shared a disregard for the lives of those they ruled. Humanity had no place in their attitude to war. When one acted brutally, the other would respond – with more brutality. Nowhere was that uncompromising attitude to human life made more clear than during the struggle for the Soviet capital.

  In mid-October 1941 it looked as if Moscow was about to fall into German hands. But then Stalin decided to stay in the city; NKVD troops quelled the panic and the winter rains began, causing a three-week delay to the German advance as the roads became impassable. Whilst the Germans waited, Zhukov set about enforcing discipline at the front and nine Soviet reserve armies were gathered east of the Volga, bolstered by the arrival of fresh troops from Siberia.

  Operation Typhoon, the German advance on Moscow, began again on 15 November, and on the solid, frozen ground made good progress. By the beginning of December a few forward units were about 20 kilometres from the centre of the city – it was as near as the Germans were ever to get. Walter Schaefer-Kehnert’s Panzer unit was one of those that came closest, on 4 December. As he studied his maps and examined the position of his artillery batteries, he realized an extraordinary truth: ‘I measured this distance to the Kremlin and said, “Well, if we had a long-range cannon, we could shoot at the Kremlin.”’ Through the regimental commander they obtained a 10.5-centimetre gun and opened fire. ‘With a 10-centimetre gun you won’t do much harm,’ he says. ‘We thought only of the morale consequences on the citizens of Moscow – shooting to the town and the Kremlin!’

  The ineffectual shelling of the Kremlin symbolized the German position – they had come so far and yet still had not accomplished the goal they had set themselves. The next day, 5 December, Schaefer-Kehnert’s unit felt the weight of the Soviet counter-attack. As the Germans tried to defend themselves, they were hampered by the sudden, intense cold. ‘When the temperature dropped to below minus 30 degrees Celsius our machine guns were not firing any more,’ says Schaefer-Kehnert. ‘Our machine guns were precision instruments but when the oil got thick they didn’t shoot properly any more – this really makes you afraid.’ All around him, he saw the devastating effect of the Germans’ lack of winter clothing. According to the original Barbarossa plan, two-thirds of the German Army should have been withdrawn by now since the war would already have been won, so proper preparations had never been made for winter warfare. ‘We had huge losses from frozen toes and fingers during the night,’ says Schaefer-Kehnert. ‘And when the infantry had to sleep in the open, you tried to make a hole in the snow. Then there was an order that a guard had to go round every two hours and look because you would freeze to death and you would not realize it was happening. Particularly if we had been fighting during the day and sweating and then we cooled off at night – that was when the greatest danger was of freezing to death. It’s a very nice death but you don’t want to have it!’

  Rüdiger von Reichert’s unit suffered when they could no longer move their heavy artillery. The guns were pulled by brewery horses, ‘pampered creatures used to an abundance of food and warm stables, and these poor animals now suddenly found themselves drawing heavy pieces of artillery which they had to draw first through quicksand, then mud and then snow. And almost all of them died of heart disease.’

  ‘The German Army near Moscow was a very miserable sight,’ says Fyodor Sverdlov, a company commander in the Soviet 19th Rifle Brigade. ‘I remember very well the Germans in July 1941. They were confident, strong, tall guys. They marched ahead with their sleeves rolled up and carrying their machine guns. But later on they became miserable, crooked, snotty guys wrapped in woollen kerchiefs stolen from old women in villages . . . Of course, they were still firing and defending themselves, but they weren’t the Germans we knew earlier in 1941.’

  Whilst the Soviet counter-attack continued, on 7 December Hitler received what he took to be good news – the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. He believed this meant that the United States, with its hands tied by a wide-ranging Pacific War, would no longer be able to devote resources to helping Britain and consequently the Soviet Union. Only days earlier Hitler had been briefed by Fritz Todt, Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions, that if the USA entered the conflict, the war would be lost for Germany. But Hitler still chose to see American involvement via Japan as a positive sign. On 11 December Germany formally declared war on the United States. To Hitler this was doing little more than recognizing the inevitable; ever since the Americans had begun their package of war aid to the British, he had foreseen an eventual confrontation with the USA unless Britain could be removed from the conflict first. That, after all, had been one of the key reasons behind Operation Barbarossa – Hitler had wanted to eliminate the threat from the East before an American-backed front opened in Europe. Unfortunately for Hitler, not only had the Red Army not been destroyed in 1941 as planned, but the opening of hostilities between Japan and the U
SA and the subsequent Japanese advance south to Singapore meant that Stalin could now release more Soviet troops from his Western border, confident that he would not fall victim to an attack from the Japanese, Germany’s Axis ally. With its military machine fully occupied on land fighting the British, and in the Pacific confronting the mighty American fleet, it was not in Japan’s interests to provoke any conflict with the Soviet Union.

  By the middle of December the situation of the German troops outside Moscow had become desperate. Halder called their predicament ‘the greatest crisis in two world wars’ and summed up a report from the Quartermaster General as saying ‘we have reached the end of our human and material forces’.2

  On 16 December Hitler ordered the German forces to stand firm, believing that any retreat might turn into a rout. He issued a directive to Army Group Centre calling for the ‘fanatical will to defend the ground on which the troops are standing’ to be ‘injected’ into the troops. If a staged withdrawal was ever necessary, then ‘every place of inhabitation must be burnt down and destroyed without consideration for the population’.

  The Panzer commander, Heinz Guderian, objected fiercely to Hitler’s order. He argued that to insist the Army stood where it was would result in the senseless death of German soldiers. They must retreat. Hitler seemed bemused by these objections. ‘Do you think Frederick the Great’s Grenadiers enjoyed dying for their country either?’ he asked. Revealingly, he then criticized Guderian. ‘You stand too close to events,’ Hitler remarked. ‘You ought to disengage yourself more.’3

  Hitler’s obvious contempt for those, like Guderian, who expressed any pity for human suffering was another key reason why the war became so brutal. In a crisis he believed the stronger ‘will’ would prevail – and ‘will’ became a synonym for cruelty. He always felt his generals had a dangerous tendency towards pity. On 22 December Guderian was relieved of his command. A few days earlier, on the 19th, Field Marshal von Brauchitsch had retired because of ill health. He received none of the traditional decorations or honours due on retirement. Instead he was vilified. Here – to committed Nazis – was another example of a German general who just hadn’t demonstrated the strength of ‘will’ the Führer had a right to demand. Goebbels recorded in his diary the following March that Hitler called Brauchitsch ‘a vain, cowardly wretch who could not even appraise the situation, much less master it’. Goebbels also recorded his own view that ‘The senior officers who have risen from the General Staff are incapable of withstanding severe strain and major tests of character.’ The pure Nazi view is here clearly expressed – deficient equipment and inadequate supplies were not symptomatic of disastrous planning but were, in fact, ‘major tests of character’.4