Nevertheless in mid-October the transfer of the division to the Eastern Front was ordered. I immediately complained personally to Hitler, asking him at least to postpone his order until I had had an opportunity of inspecting the division once again, as I wished to form an impartial opinion of its efficiency and ensure that it was not sent into the heavy battles on the Eastern Front before it was ready. I went to France at once. After inspecting the troops and talking at length with the commanders I sent a message back stating that the division needed a minimum of four weeks for the issuing of new equipment and essential training. This message went in the form of a telegram. It crossed another telegram ordering the division’s immediate departure. Hitler, the OKW and the OKH simply ignored the reports of the unit commanders and of the responsible Inspector-General. Its departure was definitely fixed for October 29th.
This lack of preparedness on the part of the division was not all. The movement plan for its transport eastwards was in accordance neither with the wishes of the division nor with the tactical situation at the front. It was also changed several times while the division was in transit. The anti-tank battalion was split up into its individual guns which travelled with various units. In order to increase the division’s striking power I had assigned to it the newly formed Tiger Battalion 509. Incidentally, this battalion had also not completed its equipment; furthermore, at this moment a change of battalion commander was ordered. When the battalion set off the old commander had already left while the new one had not yet arrived.
The division was thus hurriedly shipped to Army Group South. The Army Group ordered that the wheeled elements of the division unload in the Berdichev-Kosatin, the tracked elements in the Kirovograd-Novo Ukrainka area. The division was thereby left in doubt as to where the gun tractors and the armoured troop-carrying vehicles were to be unloaded. The two unloading areas were some three days’ march apart. The division’s first general staff officer went with the advance party through Berdichev to Novo Ukrainka, while the divisional commander reported at Army Group headquarters at Vinnitsa. At Berdichev an unloading officer was supposed to arrange for the unloading and assembly of the wheeled elements—that is to say of those units equipped with wheeled transport. The march to the assembly area was then to start on November 6th. Telephonic communication did not exist between units. In order to receive their orders the responsible commanders had to drive for long distances by car.
On November 5th the enemy made a deep penetration near Kiev. On November 6th Army Group South issued orders in the following vein: ‘25th Panzer Division is placed under command of Fourth Panzer Army. Available wheeled elements will move off in the course of this day to the Biala Zerkov-Fastov area. The division will be responsible for its own protection while assembling. Tracked elements of the division will be moved up from the Kirovograd area to rejoin the rest of the division.’
Army Group was well aware of the state of the division.
At 16.00 hrs. the divisional commander assembled the unit commanders who had so far arrived and gave them their orders. Each regimental and battalion commander was issued a 1: 300,000 map.
At this time the divisional commander disposed of the following units:
Panzergrenadier Regiment 146 Regimental staff, two battalion staffs, each battalion two companies strong.
Panzergrenadier Regiment 147 Ditto.
Panzer Regiment 9 Regimental staff, staff of 2nd Battalion, elements of various companies: total tank strength, 30 Panzer IV, 15 Tigers.
Panzer Artillery Regiment 91 Regimental Staff, staff of 1st Battalion with 1 and 2 Batteries, personnel of 3rd Battalion without their guns.
Anti-tank Battalion Staff and one ad hoc company.
Signals Battalion More or less complete, but without its commander who was with the advance party.
Engineer Battalion Complete, less light engineering column and bridging column.
Anti-aircraft Battalion Staff and one battery.
With the divisional commander there were only his adjutant and second orderly officer, together with a few vehicles and motor-cyclists.
In view of the urgency of the situation the divisional commander decided to organise a number of march groups, to which units would be assigned according to their readiness to move off and their distance from the division’s starting-point. These groups would move through Kasatin and Skvira to the sector west of Biala Zerkov. There he intended to await the arrival of the remainder of his division and arrange for its assembly. He did not believe that it would be possible to move off before 22.00 hrs. on the 6th of November since the issuing of orders by car would require a considerable amount of time. He still lacked wireless communication; not that this made any difference, since wireless silence had been imposed for the immediate future.
After the subordinate commanders had left to return to their units, Fourth Panzer Army, with whom 25th Panzer Division’s commander had at last managed to establish telephonic communication, issued the following order: ‘25th Panzer Division is to proceed with all speed to Fastov which will be held in all circumstances. The commander of the 25th Panzer Division will assume the responsibilities of battle commandant, Fastov. He will be in command of two Landesschütz (Home Defence) Battalions, a Leave Battalion (i.e. a battalion rapidly thrown together of men returning from leave) and a regiment of the SS-Panzergrenadier Division Das Reich which will arrive in the course of the evening.’ His route was given him as Kosatin-Skvira-Popelnia-Fastov, but owing to partisans having blown a bridge he was compelled to follow a country track eastwards of Skvira instead.
The divisional commander decided to travel at the head of the first march group. The march started punctually and began smoothly enough. During the second half of the night retreating columns, consisting almost entirely of Luftwaffe personnel, caused considerable confusion which was only cleared up by energetic action on the part of the divisional commander. Up to this point the weather had been good, but now it deteriorated; heavy rain began to fall and went on falling throughout the following day, turning the roads into quagmires. The wheeled vehicles were compelled to make large detours, though the tracked vehicles managed to go on. There was no contact now between the various march groups.
At about 12.00 hrs. on November 7th the divisional commander learned from retreating soldiers that the enemy had already entered Fastov. Together with his orderly officer, he hurried forward to arrange the attack on that place. Since he had already been several times the target for enemy rifle fire during this advance, he now travelled in an armoured troop-carrying vehicle: with his orderly officer in another such vehicle, he led the vanguard. He thus ran into Russian T34 tanks. The 9th Company of Panzergrenadier Regiment 146, following immediately behind with its four heavy infantry guns, was fired on and panicked. The divisional commander then drove back to find the II Battalion of Panzergrenadier Regiment 146, which was supposed to be marching up. He discovered that they too were retreating but managed to turn them around, got them in some sort of order again and brought them forward to Trilissy. He remained with the troops lest they panic once again and ordered them to dig in as darkness was falling. During the night Russian tanks managed to make their way among the battalion’s transport, which they partially destroyed. The divisional commander now decided that he would break through the Russian tanks that were swarming about him in the darkness and head for Fastov that night, so as to reach the elements of his division that had gone on ahead. His little battle group consisted of one company in front and one behind, with the vehicles and heavy weapons in the middle. General von Schell went at the head of the leading company. After heavy fighting he succeeded in breaking through the encircling enemy tanks at 04.00 hrs. in the morning of the 8th of November; at about 14.00 hrs. he reached the headquarters of XLVII Panzer Corps at Biala Zerkov. His division was now placed under command of this corps.
Sketch Map 27a
Operations by 25 Panzer Division, November 1943.
Meanwhile other elements of the d
ivision, commanded by Colonel Freiherr von Wechmar, were moving towards Fastov by way of Grebenki and Slavia. Early on the 9th of November General von Schell joined them. The village of Fastovetz, to the east of Fastov, was held by a strong enemy force which had to be attacked. With the divisional commander leading the assault himself it was captured at noon and an attack on Fastov immediately ordered. The enemy suffered heavy casualties. On the 10th of November the attacking force succeeded in reaching the eastern outskirts of Fastov, but when trying to advance further came up against overwhelming enemy strength both in the town and to the south of it, so that they had to be satisfied with mopping up Slavia. All the same this operation had succeeded in holding up the enemy’s advance.
The division had been committed, when not yet ready and piecemeal, in an extremely difficult operation; despite the personal exertions of General von Schell it could not be said to have achieved a great deal. It is true that it caused the enemy heavy casualties, but while so doing it had itself suffered severely. A lack of battle experience caused the green troops to show a tendency to panic before they became accustomed to the difficulties of winter fighting on the Eastern Front. The responsible local higher commands (Army Group, Army and Panzer Corps) were compelled by the urgency of the moment to commit the division in the manner described above. But the Supreme Command must bear the blame for failing to realise that these young troops needed more careful handling.
In later battles, from the 24th to the 30th of December, 1943, this unfortunate division found itself once again in a most difficult situation; while holding a 25-mile front it was attacked and thrown back by the enemy in overwhelming strength. It suffered such severe casualties that it would have to be reformed almost from scratch. Hitler and the OKH wanted to dissolve it. I prevented this at the time, since the division was in no way responsible for its fate. General von Schell became seriously ill and had to leave the front. He suffered greatly from the unmerited failure of this division which he had spent so many months of loving work and great skill in building up. Hitler’s distrust of him was such that he never again held a command. So his capacity for hard work and his great talent for organisation and training remained unused.
In order to have at least something ready for the Western Front I ordered the collection of all the demonstration units from the schools into one division to be trained together in France. This was called the Panzer-Lehr Division (the Panzer Demonstration Division). It was given new equipment and assigned specially selected officers. Its commander was General Bayerlein, who, it will be recalled, had at one time been my first operations officer in Russia. Hitler approved the formation of this division in December with the remark: ‘An unexpected help on which I had not reckoned.’
Meanwhile severe fighting continued almost without a pause. The Russians succeeded in breaking through Army Group Centre’s line in the Rechitsa area, between the Pripet and the Beresina. There were fierce battles for Vitebsk and Nevel. Gomel and Propoisk were lost, but our troops maintained a bridgehead on the far bank of the Dnieper to the east of Mogilev and Orsha.
It may well be asked whether the retention of these bridgeheads over the Dnieper in present circumstances—when a resumption of our offensive eastwards was clearly and permanently out of the question—was still a sensible proposition. At Nikopol Hitler wished to exploit the supplies of manganese there available. This was an economic reason for retaining that bridgehead, though a weak one and, as already seen, the bridgehead was operationally harmful to us. So far as all the others were concerned it would have been better to give them up and retire behind the broad river line. Thus reserves could have been built up —primarily in the form of panzer divisions—and with such reserves it would have become possible to fight a mobile war and to pursue an operational plan. But if Hitler heard the word ‘operational’ he lost his temper. He believed that whenever his generals spoke of operations they meant withdrawals; and consequently Hitler insisted with fanatical obstinacy that ground must be held, all ground, even when it was to our disadvantage to do so.
The severe casualties suffered during the heavy winter fighting had utterly confounded the OKH. They produced no programme for the building up of our forces in the West against the invasion that could be anticipated with certainty for the spring of 1944. I therefore regarded it as my duty to bring up repeatedly the need for withdrawing panzer divisions from the front and restoring their strength in time. The OKW might have been expected to show the greatest interest in what promised soon to be its most vital theatre, yet here too I failed to find any support. So the freeing of forces for the West continued to be postponed until one day, in Zeitzler’s presence, I spoke once again to Hitler on the subject. The question immediately under discussion was the withdrawal of one particular panzer division. Zeitzler said that the withdrawal had been ordered in the clearest terms. I had to contradict him, pointing out that the relevant OKH orders contained many loopholes of which the generals at the front could avail themselves in their own interests. My remarks on this subject brought a heated denial from the Chief of the Army General Staff. But the most recent OKH order concerning the withdrawal of a division had run somewhat as follows: ‘The X Panzer Division is to be withdrawn from the front as soon as the battle situation makes this possible. Battle groups will, however, remain in contact with the enemy until further notice. The OKH is to be notified when the withdrawal begins.’ The phrase ‘until further notice’ was standard in orders of this sort. The immediate reaction of the army group or army commander who was to release the division was almost equally standard; he would reply that the battle situation did not permit the immediate withdrawal of the division in question. Weeks often went by before it did do so. The battle groups which even then had to be left behind constituted, needless to say, those elements of the division with the greatest fighting strength, particularly the tanks and the panzergrenadiers: it was just these that it was most necessary to rest and re-equip. The normal procedure was that, first of all, the complete divisional supply services would appear, followed by the staff and a fair proportion of the divisional artillery; with the result that I was still unable to carry out my work since the most important units remained behind. Zeitzler was very angry with me, but the interests of the Western theatre could not be ignored.
By the beginning of the invasion on June 6th, 1944, we had succeeded with difficulty in making ten panzer and panzergrenadier divisions ready for operations in the West and, to a certain extent, in replenishing and training them. I shall revert to this matter later on. I entrusted the training of these formations, which included, moreover, three reserve panzer divisions formed from replacement units and transferred from Germany to France, to my old and trusted comrade-in-arms, General Freiherr von Geyr; after repeated arguments on the subject Hitler still refused to give General von Geyr a command at the front. Geyr’s official position was ‘General of Panzer Troops West.’ Territorially and operationally he was subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief West, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt; so far as his activities within the armoured force were concerned he received his orders from me. Our work together was based on mutual confidence and was, I think, of help to the troops.
There were a few more noteworthy incidents during that eventful year of 1943. I have already mentioned how, during my visit to Goebbels, I brought up the question of the mismanagement of affairs by the Supreme Command and how I asked the minister to urge Hitler that it be reorganised; I had hoped that the appointment of a Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff with the necessary authority would lessen Hitler’s direct influence on military operations. Goebbels had pronounced the problem a thorny one, but had nevertheless promised to do what he could at an appropriate time. At the end of July, 1943, the minister happened to be in East Prussia and I took advantage of this to visit him and to remind him of our former important converation. He immediately began to discuss the matter, admitting the increasing deterioration of our military situation, and adding thoughtfully: ‘When I think of
the Russians reaching Berlin and us having to poison our wives and children so that they should not fall into the hands of that atrocious enemy, your question oppresses me like a mountain weighing on my soul.’ Goebbels perfectly understood what the result of the war would be if it were to continue to be run as heretofore, but unfortunately he did not act accordingly. He never had sufficient courage to speak to Hitler on the lines that I have indicated and thus to attempt to influence him.
I therefore tried next to sound out Himmler, but received an impression of such impenetrable obliquity that I gave up any idea of discussing a limitation of Hitler’s power with him.
In November I went to see Jodl, to whom I submitted my proposals for a reorganisation of the Supreme Command: the Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff would control the actual conduct of operations, while Hitler would be limited to his proper field of activities, supreme control of the political situation and of the highest war strategy. After I had expounded my ideas at length and in detail Jodl replied laconically: ‘Do you know of a better supreme commander than Adolf Hitler?’ His expression had remained impassive as he said this, and his whole manner was one of icy disapproval. In view of his attitude I put my papers back in my brief-case and left the room.
In January, 1944, Hitler invited me to breakfast, with the words: ‘Somebody’s sent me a teal. You know I'm a vegetarian. Would you like to have breakfast with me and eat the teal?’ We were alone together at a small round table in a rather dark room, since the only light came from one window. Only his sheepdog bitch, Blondi, was there. Hitler fed her from time to time with pieces of dry bread. Linge, the servant who waited on us, came and went silently. The rare occasion had arisen on which it would be possible to tackle and perhaps to solve thorny problems. After a few opening remarks the conversation turned on the military situation. I brought up the matter of the Allied landings in the West which were to be expected for the coming spring, and remarked that our reserves at present available to meet them were insufficient. In order to free more forces it was essential that a stronger defence be established on the Eastern Front. I expressed my astonishment that apparently no thought had been given to providing our front there with a backbone in the form of field fortifications and a defensive zone in our rear. Specifically it seemed to me that the reconstruction of the old German and Russian frontier fortifications would offer us better defensive possibilities than did the system of declaring open towns as ‘strong points’—which declarations, incidentally, usually came at the last moment when it was too late to take measures which would justify the phrase. With these remarks I soon saw that I had stirred up a hornet’s nest.
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