Ostkrieg

by Stephen G. Fritz

  Reckoning

  When the Soviet counteroffensive came on the night of 5–6 December, it could not have been better timed. German troops, having passed the culmination point, were overextended, mentally and physically exhausted, without supplies or winter equipment, and with dangerously vulnerable supply lines. No preparations for the defense had been made, nor could any positions now be built, for both manpower and construction materials were lacking. The Wehrmacht had thrown the last available men into the attack, struggling on largely out of fear of the alternative. As Bock stressed in a telephone call to Jodl on 3 December, “If the attack is called off then going over to the defensive will be very difficult. This thought and the possible consequences of going over to the defensive with our weak forces have . . . contributed to my sticking with this attack so far.” Two days later, however, Bock admitted that the offensive strength of his forces was shot. The unbearable cold (temperatures had plunged to –36°F on 5 December) not only exhausted his troops but also left German tanks inoperable. Assessing the reasons for the German failure, Bock cited the autumn muddy period that paralyzed movement and robbed him of the ability to exploit the victory at Vyazma as well as the failure of the railroad system. Significantly, he also acknowledged that the Germans had underestimated Soviet reserves of manpower and materiel. The enemy, he marveled, had ruthlessly mobilized so that the Red Army actually had twenty-four more divisions now than in mid-November. The headlong pursuit of the Russians had been justified as long as the OKH believed that the enemy was fighting with the last of his forces; now, Bock noted accusingly, this had proved a grave mistake that placed his army group in serious danger. In this serious situation, however, the Germans comforted themselves with the belief that the Russians could not launch a major attack.1

  German intelligence had, in fact, noted at the end of November a buildup of strong, new Russian forces behind the front but believed that they could not mount an immediate, serious counteroffensive. By then, however, Soviet counterattacks designed to achieve local success as well as hold German troops in place had already begun at the far ends of the front, at Tikhvin in the north and Rostov in the south. At the same time, preparations for a far more ambitious attack near Moscow had been completed. The Soviets had begun raising new divisions as early as October, while, in November, troops from Siberia, the Far East, the Volga area, and the Caucasus had been moved into the Moscow region. The true extent of Soviet manpower reserves would have shocked Bock, had he known, for, instead of the twenty-four new divisions he thought he faced, the Russians had formed thirty-three rifle divisions, seven cavalry divisions, thirty rifle brigades, and two tank brigades. These troops were admittedly badly trained, poorly equipped, inexperienced in combat, and led by officers with little training or experience, but they were there, at a time when just the appearance of new enemy formations had been enough to panic the depleted German forces. Despite their astounding losses, the Soviets managed to assemble slightly more than a million men, with more than seven hundred tanks and thirteen hundred aircraft for the operation; actual Soviet combat strength opposite Army Group Center was now greater than it had been when Operation Typhoon began in October. The time was right, Zhukov stressed to Stalin on 29 November, for German strength was sapped. The Soviet dictator agreed and sanctioned the attack. Ironically, in the first two days of December, it appeared as if the Soviet action might have come too late. To the surprise of the Germans as much as the Soviets, units of the Fourth Army broke through the Russian defense line south of the Smolensk-Moscow highway, while elements of Guderian’s Second Panzer Army made headway around Tula. By the third, however, declining strength, stiffening resistance, and the cold forced Bock to call off the attack.2

  The Soviets having brought the Germans to a standstill, the time had come for them to go over to the counteroffensive, an action that resulted, over the next few months, in a vicious dogfight as both sides struggled in the shadow of the events of 1812. The initial Soviet intent was modest: to force the enemy away from Moscow in order to eliminate the immediate threat to the capital. The Soviet plan originally aimed not at the large-scale encirclement and destruction of German forces but merely at biting off the Third and Fourth Panzergruppen as well as the Second Panzer Army to the south. The point of main effort was in the north, where German forces had penetrated closest to the city, with the objective of relieving pressure on the Moscow-Volga Canal and driving toward Klin. While the central sector was supposed to contain German troops and prevent their deployment elsewhere, a stronger southern wing was to rupture the link between the Second Panzer Army and the Second Army and thrust deep into the rear of the former, threatening it with encirclement. Still, the Soviets hoped merely to push the Germans back some thirty miles in the north and sixty miles in the south. Armed with good intelligence indicating a lack of supplies and instances of panic among German troops, Zhukov believed the enemy to be exhausted and likely to be caught off balance, but he was unwilling to risk anything more ambitious in view of the enfeebled state of his own men.3

  Although most of the Soviet troops were untried in battle, they were at least fresh and warmly dressed as they launched their attack in bitter cold on the morning of 5 December. That night the temperature had again plunged, so, when reports of enemy action came in, the Germans discovered, to their distress, that tanks failed to start, machine guns and artillery would not fire because lubricants and oil had congealed in their recoil mechanisms, and many men suffered from frostbite. The assault, led by shock armies heavy in armor, motorized vehicles, and automatic weapons, succeeded in breaking through German lines, but both it and attacks over the next two days in the center and south failed to meet Soviet expectations. The pace of the advance was disappointingly slow as Red Army commanders still lacked experience in executing offensive operations. As a result, time and again they would attack German positions frontally rather than bypassing points of resistance to drive deep into the enemy flank and rear. Still, Russian successes raised immediate concerns since German efforts to shift troops to stem the tide were hampered by lack of fuel, equipment breakdowns, icy roads, massive snowdrifts that blocked rail lines, and the general exhaustion of the troops. Gradually, the many local penetrations and the serious damage done to some German divisions had a cumulative impact that allowed Soviet forces to advance deep into the rear and threaten supply lines.4

  Although front commanders sent increasingly panicked messages, Hitler and the OKH were slow to recognize the brewing disaster. In a detailed discussion of the military situation with Halder on the sixth, Hitler dismissed German and enemy casualty figures as not reflective of the true fighting strength of the two armies. Nor did the Führer entertain any notion of abandoning territory to shorten the line and, thus, free up troops. Instead, his thoughts had turned already to planning for the spring offensive. Brauchitsch, amazingly enough, even issued orders to Army Group Center that, “after the conclusion of the operation against Moscow,” it was to organize itself so as to turn away the Russian attacks directed at its center and flanks. Halder was only slightly less deluded; he took note of Soviet actions but regarded them as merely of limited tactical importance.5

  By the eighth, however, enemy pressure on the left flank of Army Group Center had built to such an extent that Bock felt compelled to shake the OKH out of its illusions. Not least, he was influenced by dire warnings from the Third Panzergruppe that its forces were no longer operational as well as a bleak telephone call from the usually confident Guderian, who warned of a growing “crisis of confidence.” Bock now presented his quandary to Halder in stark terms. If he was to have any chance of holding the line, he needed immediate replacements and supplies, which were not likely to arrive in time. If, on the other hand, he attempted a withdrawal, the deep snow, shortage of fuel, and lack of tractors to pull the heavy weapons meant that an enormous loss of equipment and supplies was unavoidable. His troops would, thus, arrive at unprepared defensive positions with no heavy weapons with which to hal
t the Russian advance. Bock had posed a devil’s dilemma: German troops could fight where they were, and likely be destroyed, or carry out a large-scale withdrawal, with the threat that any retreat might turn into a rout. Halder attempted to reassure him by dismissing the attacking Russian units as only rear elements and untrained recruits, adding, “I presume that [the Russian counterattacks] will continue until the middle or end of the month and then things will quiet down.” To that Bock replied bitterly, “By then, the Army Group will be kaputt.” Aghast, Halder tersely rejoined, “The German soldier does not go kaputt.”6

  Despite Halder’s bravado, things looked rather different at the front. Even as Bock snatched all available men from logistics, signals, and headquarters units and transferred rear security divisions to the front, the Germans proved unable either to halt the breakthroughs or to eliminate the growing gaps in their lines. By the tenth, a near-complete breakdown of the transportation system led to a rations crisis, with virtually no supplies getting through to the troops. On the thirteenth, the Sixth Panzer Division reported that it had only 350 riflemen and no tanks, while, three days later, the Seventh Panzer was left with only 200 men, ten fighting vehicles, and no heavy tanks: the last one had broken down and been blown up. Continuous fighting had brought the Landsers to the brink of physical and mental collapse. Morale suffered as confidence in the higher command faltered, a private complaining on 6 December, “My God, what is this Russia going to do to us all? Our superiors must . . . listen to us, otherwise, in this state, we are going to go under.” Sacrifices were not unexpected, noted another, “but when nothing of use” resulted, “then that is something to think about.” Discipline and order mingled with panic and unalloyed fear at the prospect of being captured by the Russians. A Third Panzergruppe report illuminated well the dramatic state of impending collapse: “Discipline is breaking down. More and more soldiers are heading west on foot without weapons, leading a calf on a rope or pulling a sled loaded with potatoes. The road is under constant air attack. Those killed by bombs are no longer being buried. All the hangers on . . . are pouring back to the rear in full flight.” A system of strongpoints slowed the Russian advance but left individual Landsers with a sense of isolation and abandonment. As Harald Henry despaired, “I seem to be the last single survivor from the whole company.”7

  Although in the north the Ninth Army and the Fourth Panzergruppe had managed, at the cost of very high casualties, to slow the Russian advance, to the south the enemy attack launched on 6 December had been more successful. By the seventh, the Soviets had taken Mikhailov, where panic erupted among German troops, and the next day punched through German lines. With his army under attack from three sides, Guderian began to pull his units back from Tula in order to prevent encirclement and with hopes of forming a coherent defense. Attempts to close the widening gap in his lines failed for lack of troops, vehicle breakdowns, the numbing cold, and deep snow that hindered all movement. By the tenth, the gap stretched to twelve miles; in desperation, Bock ordered the First SS Brigade, the 221st Security Division, and two police battalions withdrawn from the rear area and sent to the front. Guderian, with no more than forty panzers in his whole army, pleaded with Bock for more troops, but the latter had none to give. Hitler had forbidden the dispatch of any intact divisions to the front; only men returning from leave and convalescent battalions could be expected. After all, he told Schmundt, his military adjutant, he “could not send everything out into the winter just because Army Group Center had a few gaps in its front.” At the same time, a serious crisis faced the Second Army as Soviet forces broke through and drove in the direction of Livny. The Germans’ attempt to seal the breach by attacking the Russian flanks failed, raising the worrisome possibility of a deep operational breakthrough toward Kursk and Orel that would cut their supply and retreat routes as well as those of the Second Panzer Army to the north. As a last resort, the divisional headquarters and two reinforced regiments from two infantry divisions in Army Group South were sent to the Second Army, but they would not arrive before the thirteenth or fourteenth.8

  Only on the twelfth, with the entire front in danger of disintegrating, did Halder begin to realize the seriousness of the situation. When, in reply to yet another of Bock’s reports about the untenable situation at the front, he persisted in doubting that the enemy could build on his success, he was shocked by Bock’s response: “Of course they can! We cannot stop our troops running away as soon as they see a Russian tank!” Finally shaken to reality, Halder admitted that Germany faced “the most serious situation of the two [world] wars.” It was, he conceded, a question of the very existence of the Ostheer. With little hope that the army group could hold out, Bock emphasized the next day to Brauchitsch that key decisions had to be made that went beyond the military and that only the Führer could make.9

  Despite the alarming reports from the front, Hitler had steadfastly resisted making a decision. In part, this resulted from his reluctance to give up his offensive plans for 1942; in part, it reflected the limits he faced since he could hardly afford a large-scale call-up of workers owing to the precarious situation of the labor market. He was also notoriously mistrustful of army reports and in any case evidently had not seen Bock’s evaluation of the situation. Not until the fourteenth, when Schmundt confirmed Brauchitsch’s report on the catastrophic state of affairs at the front, that, indeed, he saw no way of “getting the army out of this difficult situation,” did Hitler realize that he had to act immediately if Army Group Center was to be saved. He agreed to a straightening of the front at Klin and Kalinin and the withdrawal of Guderian’s forces in the south, but no other retreats were to be made until rear defense lines had been prepared. After all, he stressed, only in a few places had there been deep penetrations. That same night, he ordered General Fromm, the commander of the Replacement Army, to mobilize what units he could—barely four divisions—and dispatch them to the front. The next day, he ordered that five divisions be sent from Western Europe, although, in order to expedite their movement, only “rifle bearers” were to be gathered and sent, while an additional four divisions would be made available from forces in the Balkans. At the same time, the home front was to be scoured for men who could be sent east for construction tasks. Since these transfers would take time, however, Hitler could see no alternative at the present but to hold the line and not retreat.10

  With the German command system at odds—the generals continued to advocate retreat, while Hitler insisted that such a move made no sense if, at the end of it, the troops found themselves in the same situation but without heavy weapons and artillery—the Führer on 16 December asserted control. Having heard that day from both Bock and Guderian that their forces faced destruction without the speedy arrival of replacements and supplies, Hitler that night made a decision based largely on Bock’s earlier arguments, which, to the Führer, justified the “great gamble” of risking the loss of the army group: without prepared positions, and having abandoned most of their equipment, any withdrawal might well turn into a panicked rout. Hitler, who prided himself on his ability both to master and to profit from a crisis, now set out to resolve this one. That night, he issued his controversial Haltebefehl (order to hold out), which allowed Army Group North to withdraw to the Volkhov but then ordered “the front to be defended down to the last man.” He thus hoped to overcome the danger with an iron will and by seeing to the rapid transfer of all available units to the east. In a step toward the further Nazification of the army, he also demanded: “The commanders-in-chief, commanders, and officers are to take personal charge of forcing the troops into their positions to put up fanatical resistance. . . . Only with this style of leadership can the time required to bring up the reinforcements . . . be gained.” Since Hitler would now take all decisions personally, any withdrawal would require his approval, which meant a near-complete loss of autonomy for front commanders. In effect, he assumed direct command of the army itself. His stand-and-fight order, which at least provided clarity a
nd removed the uncertainties of the situation, also stripped his generals of the flexibility and command initiative that had been the key to German operational success.11

  Although, in retrospect, this decision has been much criticized by historians, at the time it likely seemed the only possible course of action. Withdrawal meant losing the heavy weapons and would not have halted the Russians in any case, while Bock himself worried about the very real possibility that, once begun, a retreat would turn into a disaster of Napoleonic proportions. Nor was a mobile defense a serious alternative, given the lack of vehicles, tanks, fuel, supplies, and the difficulty of movement on the snow-covered roads. As Bock and his army commanders had repeatedly pointed out, the only feasible solution lay in holding their positions and rushing reserves to fill the gaps. Hitler, then, was largely acceding to the advice of his generals, but with a new twist: not only had he taken command initiative away from them, but the order to stand fast would now be carried out in a rigid and uncompromising manner that meant the needless death of many Landsers. In the event, Hitler’s intent to hold out up front until reinforcements arrived failed, not because it was inherently unreasonable, but as a result of the deficient German transportation system.12

  The immediate result of the stand-and-fight decision was the removal of both Brauchitsch and Bock, neither of whom appeared to Hitler fit to deal with the crisis. More consequential, since virtually all regarded Brauchitsch as irrelevant and no more than a messenger boy, was the fact of Hitler’s assumption on the nineteenth of formal command of the army. Although Halder initially believed that he might profit from the new situation, he was quickly left in no doubt that the OKH would be little more than a transmission service for Hitler’s wishes. On the twentieth, the Führer gave orders to Halder on how the war in the east should be conducted, emphasizing again that “a fanatical will to fight” had to be instilled in the troops by “all, even the most severe, means.” Every soldier, even those in support services, was to “defend himself where he is.” Otherwise, he noted, “a crisis of confidence in the leadership threatens to develop from every retreat.” Significantly, in order to retain a sense of assertive will and deny the enemy anything of value, the most brutal scorched earth policy was to accompany any evacuation of territory: “All abandoned farms were to be burned to the ground; prisoners and inhabitants were to be ruthlessly stripped of their winter clothing.” “There was,” he declared, “no reason that the troops should lose their sense of superiority . . . over this enemy.”13