Disaster at Stalingrad

by Peter G. Tsouras

  The news from Tiflis spread south and panicked the 46th Army which fell back precipitately and began to melt away as the natives of the region deserted. The Turkish 3rd Army and the Jägers overran the weak rearguards and pressed on, taking the city with little resistance just as the panzers arrived from the north. With Tiflis in German control, all the Soviet armies to the east, the remnants of the Northern Group and others, were trapped.

  At the same time, 17th Army, having consolidated its victories on the Black Sea coast, began the march to Tiflis with 5th SS Division Wiking and the Slovaks (LVII Panzer Corps) in the lead with orders to press on regardless of the slow pace of the following infantry corps. It was 214 miles from Sukhumi to Tiflis, and it would take the panzers less than a week to reach it. The Romanian divisions were left behind to garrison the coast and western Georgia.

  The Turkish 2nd Army found itself stopped cold in the Armenian mountains outside Yerevan. The Armenians fought with the same ferocity as the Soviet defenders of the grain elevator. Although Dzhulfa had fallen with a great deal of railway rolling stock and mountains of Allied aid, the Turks there could not use the railway to move through Armenia. Although the Azeri Turks welcomed them as liberators, that area was a poor one from which to base a drive to Baku, 248 miles away over poor roads and no railway connections. Yet, when they had taken Dzhulfa, they had set in train the decisions that would lead to the collapse of the Soviet grip on this vast, rich region.

  Kleist had his hands full in Tiflis trying to sort out control of the city. The Georgians were terrified of the Turks whose Ottoman masters had massacred the inhabitants in the late 18th century. Kleist put his foot down and ordered the Turks out of the city where they had already begun to loot and murder. Then there were so-called Knights of Queen Tamara, a proto-fascist group that had sprung up as the communists fled the city. Those Reds foolish enough to stay behind had met rough justice at the hands of the Knights. They were quickly enrolled as a German army auxiliary unit. With supervision they would be useful.

  Most of all, Kleist needed to give his men rest, and what better place than this charming green ancient city built on the hillsides above a rushing river. He allowed the churches to reopen and was blessed by the Georgian Orthodox bishop. Luckily for the Georgians and the security of 1st Panzer Army’s line of communications, the German political administration of conquered territories had not yet caught up with 1st Panzer Army.

  The Germans got on well with the Georgians whom they respected as tough fighters in the Red Army. Now, with Soviet power crushed, they threw flowers in the streets as the mountain troops and tanks had entered their city. After almost 150 years, they would finally be free of the Russians and especially the brutality of the communists. It was a case of being careful of what you wish for. The Germans were particularly taken with the blond Georgians from the province of Mingrelia, the descendants of the Colchians of the legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece. The blond South Ossetians also amazed them. Their province lay north of Tiflis along the Georgian Military Highway as it descended from the mountains. They claimed to be the descendants of the ancient Aryan Alans, the steppe nomads who had terrorized the late Roman Empire in the wake of the Huns. Then there was the intoxicating Georgian wine and good food. Tiflis seemed like a lush paradise after the scorched steppes they had crossed north of the mountains.

  For soldiers nothing this good can last as long as there is a higher headquarters. The calls from the Werewolf were insistent. ‘Move on, move on to Baku!’ The oilfields and the Caspian Sea beckoned, only 280 miles away.

  By the time 1st Panzer Army headed east, XL Panzer Corps had caught up with it, the men wistfully imagining what fun might there have been in Tiflis as they passed through. After them trudged the Jägers of XLIV Corps, now attached to Kleist, and the Turkish 3rd Army. It had been agreed that the Turks would garrison the regions of Azerbaijan along the path of the German advance and keep communications open. The Turkish commander was not happy that they would not be in for the kill at Baku. Blood on their bayonets would give Turkey a strong claim to at least part of the oilfields. As it was, they would have to be satisfied with the rest of Azerbaijan as their spoils. Brother Turks the Azeris might have been, but they were also despised Shiias. The world was so complicated.

  The Soviet collapse in the Caucasus was the trigger for the entry into Soviet Azerbaijan of the Indian XXI Corps (British 5th, Indian 5th and 8th Infantry Divisions). Stalin had been so frightened of the German advance that he desperately accepted the British proposal to reinforce his 53rd Army guarding Baku. Flying air support for the British and Indians were half a dozen American Air Corps squadrons. Flying ahead of the 1st Panzer Army to offer its own air support was, among others, the squadron of Hans Ulrich Rudel.

  Tankograd, 29 September 1942

  This vast tank factory just to the west of the Urals at Chelyabinsk had been nicknamed Tankograd (Tank City) by the tens of thousands of people who worked there pouring out the T-34 tank in increasing numbers. The factory complex, based on the already existing Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory, had sprung up almost overnight, assembled from dismantled factories and equipment moved ahead of the oncoming Germans in the autumn of 1941. It had been the unsung valour of the Russian people under brutal conditions that had caused it to appear seemingly out of nowhere and become the largest industrial enterprise in the Soviet Union. In a space of thirty-three days from when the order was given, it had begun production of the T-34. In addition to the tanks themselves, the complex produced their aluminium engines, Katyusha rocket launchers, and a great deal of ammunition.

  The assembly lines continued to work at a high tempo, turning out hundreds of tanks a week as September came to a close. Yet the railroad spur that carried them away to the fighting forces had slowed its work. Now they loaded only half the tanks that came off the assembly lines. The rest began to fill up huge lots for the simple reason that they had no engines.

  The destruction of PQ-17 had sent thousands of tons of aluminium from North America to the bottom of the Norwegian Sea or to German smelters for use in their own war industries. These shipments were nearly half of the aluminium used by Soviet war industry, vital for tank and aircraft engines. And it was not just at Chelyabinsk that production had slowed. The other great tank plants at Nizhny Tagil, Nizhny Novgorod and Sverdlovsk were also hobbled.

  As well as aluminium, other raw materials such as copper were lacking. The steady stream of American trucks and jeeps, so favoured by the Red Army, had stopped too, now that the Georgian Military Highway had been cut. A thousand other things in the way of supplies and equipment were cut off, including food. Zaitsev and the defenders of Stalingrad would have no more Second Front spam, or boots, or powdered eggs and milk, no more chemicals for munitions to feed the artillery and the Katyushas, and the list went on and on. Of course, the Soviet Union had its own sources for most of these items, but it could not build tanks and planes in huge numbers and produce these other things as well. It was one or the other. Allied aid had meant it could concentrate on the weapons of war while the Allies provided the logistics of war. No longer.

  This meant that the Stavka reserve armies training in their hundreds of thousands to the east of the Volga and north of the Don were not as quickly equipped as if the Allied aid had continued and, without equipment, training lagged. Everything slowed.

  Kharkov Training Centre, 30 September 1942

  As soon as 6th Panzer Division closed on the training centre, Erhard Raus paid a call on Grossdeutschland’s commander. The 49-year old Walter ‘Papa’ Hörnlein as he was known by his troops, was a spare Prussian with a good deal of nerve. It was rumoured that he had sent Hitler’s headquarters a signal asking if Grossdeutschland was the only German division on the Eastern Front after it had been in continuous action from one crisis to another. He had a solid reputation as a reliable commander who always had time for his men.

  Hörnlein was delighted to see Raus, whose own reputation had preceded him. ‘How w
as the trip from that hellhole in France you all suffered at?’

  ‘Ah, Brittany, I tell you the men couldn’t wait to leave,’ he said with a laugh. ‘They were anxious to experience the good weather and famous food here in Russia!’ He went on.

  In truth the men were eager to come. After returning from Russia in the spring we were brought up to strength and reequipped and trained hard. They were not happy about turning over all our tanks to Leibstandarte, though, and picking up the T-34s in Kharkov. That is until they got to play with them.

  Hörnlein smiled in response:

  Well, Raus, I tell you, your men got the better end of the deal. This Russian tank is superb. It is a dream to maintain compared to our tanks, can go places ours can’t, is better armoured, and its gun is better than anything but our long-barrelled 75mm. Now that we’ve put a radio in each and the electrically powered turret, we can do things with them in battle the Russians can’t. Here, I will send over our mechanics and company commanders to help your men break in the new equipment.

  ‘That will be a great help, but is there any word on when we move out and where?’

  Nothing, but God knows there is no shortage of crises. Stalingrad. The Caucasus. Who knows? I can tell you that Manstein has been here to see how well we are doing with the T-34s. He seemed pleased that the men were so enthusiastic. We’ve been ready to go for over a week now, but he said we had to wait for your lot.

  Chapter 12

  ‘Danke Sehr, Herr Roosevelt!’

  Metal-Working Factory, Stalingrad, 1 October 1942

  Zaitsev snatched a pistol from a wounded soldier and took cover behind a smashed locomotive’s wheelhouse. In the building just ahead the Germans were firing from a second storey window and had just wounded his friend Misha. He took aim and dropped one of the Germans with a single shot. In the window above was another German rifleman. Zaitsev checked his pistol — only one round left. Wounded, he dragged himself through the rubble to underneath the window. The Russian’s injured leg would not support his weight so he rolled onto his back to aim the pistol:

  I could see the arms of the enemy rifleman jerking with every shot, and he was cursing as he missed. Then he leaned forward to get a better angle. That was when I pointed the pistol at the base of his chin and pulled the trigger… The slug went through the top of his skull and hit his helmet with a clang. The Fritz tumbled out of the window, his nose smashing against the concrete.1

  A few days later, Zaitsev and his friends were pinned down in a bomb crater by a German heavy machine gun firing from 600 yards. One friend spotted the gun with a trench periscope and handed it to Zaitsev who also spotted it. Then he jumped up and almost without aiming fired his rifle. The German machine-gunner dropped. Another man took his place, and another quick shot killed him, followed by a third. The machine gun ceased to torment the Russians.

  Zaitsev’s regimental commander, ‘Bulletproof Batyuk’, happened to be watching through his binoculars. He asked and was told it was Vassili Zaitsev. Batyuk grunted and said, ‘Get him a sniper’s rifle.’2

  Werewolf, Vinnitsa, 4 October 1942

  Stauffenberg took his visitor for an after-dinner stroll through the towering pinewoods outside the Führer Headquarters. Their aides followed respectfully out of earshot:

  I tell you, Tresckow, I am in the very good graces of the GroFaZ [Grosster Feldheer aller Zeit– the greatest warlord of all time]. I have replaced a number of our more stodgy staff with ‘young fire eaters from the front’, as he calls them. ‘Just what I wanted! Front Soldaten [front soldiers].’ You can’t swing a cat without hitting a Knight’s Cross, a German Cross in Gold, and a wounds badge. And they have breathed a new energy and inventive positive attitude. He has come out of his seclusion to dine with the new crew. Your recommendations have been very helpful in my selection of new men.

  Standing there in the moonlight, his handsome features were eerily silhouetted — clean, honest, and determined. Tresckow commented, ‘Every one of them vetted on his honour to end this regime.’

  Stauffenberg said, ‘Kluge is with us. But Manstein continues to deflect my appeals.’

  Tresckow kicked some of the old pine needles aside with his boot. Their breath was already frosting in the air. You could feel the autumn coming and the Russian winter behind it, a thought that made every veteran of the war on the Ostfront shudder. ‘You know, Stauffenberg, there is an old saying that if you strike at a king, you must kill him. We cannot risk merely arresting Hitler as some of our more foolish generals and those civilians in Berlin advise. They want to put him on trial.’

  ‘No!’ hissed Stauffenberg. ‘One does not put the Devil through the criminal justice system. Then we would have civil war as the Nazis and the SS rallied to free him.’

  ‘What then of Goring and Himmler? Both of them are salivating to be his successor.’

  The other man said, ‘We must decapitate the entire hydra or set them upon each other. It is the Army that must come out of this as the saviour of Germany.’

  Tresckow took him by the hand, gripped it hard as he looked him full in the face. ‘Then we must be sure to place our trust in the true Saviour.’

  Baku, 8 October 1942

  Like raptors, Rudel’s Stukas fell screaming on the attacking line of Soviet tanks outside Baku. They were American M4 Shermans fresh out of the Baku Tank Training School, manned by the instructors and students. They died just like T-34s when a Stuka dropped its bomb with pinpoint accuracy. In fact, they died faster because the petrol engine ignited quickly.

  The tank attack fell apart as the survivors tried to flee. Kleist had fixed the Soviet 53rd Army and the Indian XXI Corps in the plain outside Baku with his infantry now fairly mobile with all the American trucks captured at Ordzhonikidze. The Soviet tank attack had come close to breaking through when Rudel’s Stukas responded to the call for air support. With the Soviet and British attention on their front, Kleist enveloped the Soviets from the north with 3rd Panzer Division slicing down the coast. At the same time, 13th Panzer attacked along the join between the Soviets and British. Fierce counterattacks by the Indian 5th Division cut them off. They formed a hedgehog formation fighting off Soviet and Indian attacks.

  At this moment, Kleist unleashed LVII Panzer Corps against the Indian left flank. The British 5th Division found 5th SS Wiking’s tanks in its rear as the Slovaks cut the road to Persia.

  It was an awesome sight for the men of 3rd Panzer to be driving through a forest of oil derricks that extended out into the Caspian Sea. Many of the derricks were on fire, like immense trees in the agony of a fiery death. Thick black smoke darkened the sky. Though it was a scene from hell, the Germans saw it in Wagnerian terms as the fiery death of Siegfried’s dragon.3

  The White House, 9 October 1942

  Roosevelt and the chiefs had studied Stalin’s letter carefully. After the loss of the Persian Corridor, Stalin was begging for a resumption of the convoys and an increased effort through Vladivostok. The tone of desperation was palpable.

  The difficulties of delivery are reported to be due primarily to shortage of shipping. To remedy the shipping situation the Soviet Government would be prepared to agree to a certain curtailment of US arms deliveries to the Soviet Union. We should be prepared temporarily fully to renounce deliveries of tanks, guns, ammunition, pistols, etc. At the same time, however, we are badly in need of increased deliveries of modern fighter aircraft — such as Airacobras — and certain other supplies. It should be borne in mind that the Kittyhawk is no match for the modern German fighter.

  It would be very good if the USA could ensure the monthly delivery of at least the following items: 500 fighters, 8,000 to 10,000 trucks, 5,000 tons of aluminium, and 4,000 to 5,000 tons of explosives. Besides, we need, within 12 months, two million tons of grain (wheat) and as much as we can have of fats, concentrated foods and canned meat. We could bring in a considerable part of the food supplies in Soviet ships via Vladivostok if the USA consented to turn over to the USSR twenty to
thirty ships at the least to replenish our fleet.

  As regards the situation at the front, you are undoubtedly aware that in recent months our position in the south, particularly in the Stalingrad area, has deteriorated due to shortage of aircraft, mostly fighters. The Germans have bigger stocks of aircraft than we anticipated. In the south they have at least a twofold superiority in the air, which makes it impossible for us to protect our troops. War experience has shown that the bravest troops are helpless unless protected against air attack.4

  Admiral King was adamant against the resumption of the convoys:

  Even if we wanted to, the disaster of PQ-17 has made it impossible for us to recruit the merchant seamen for the convoy, here or in Britain. Face it, Mr President, the only route left is across the Pacific in Soviet-flagged ships. And even that is in doubt. Our cipher boys have been picking up from the Jap diplomatic code that the Germans are twisting their arms to renounce their non-aggression treaty with the Russians and declare war.

  Roosevelt and Churchill had been desperate to keep the Soviet Union in the war, but their ability to do so seemed to be slipping away. It was General George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army, who said what everyone had been thinking. For once, King was in full agreement with the Army:

  Mr President, with the loss of the Persian Corridor, our last serious means to deliver decisive aid is gone. Add to that the loss to the Soviets of most of their oil production. The handwriting on the wall is clear. The Russians must sink or swim on their own. I recommend that all aid intended for the Persian Corridor be suspended and diverted instead to the build-up in Britain for the assault on Europe.