Behind the scenes, Manstein had been busy arranging trainloads of fuel, ammunition, food, spare parts and other supplies. There wasn’t a great deal to be had, but perhaps enough for ten days offensive, a nice spoiling attack. The problem now would be extricating Steiner’s Korps from that steamrolling Soviet advance. The Russians had already kicked in the back door behind Model, and they were in the house. It was clear to Manstein that 2nd Panzerarmee should be immediately with drawn, and become an attacking force as it moved towards the neck the Germans were holding open to Stary Oskol. He had to convince Hitler to allow this.
When he arrived at OKW, the mood there was somber. Halder gave him a look that spoke volumes. “Here you come again,” he said in a low voice. “But not this time, Manstein. Not this time. The Führer is in no mood to hear the word withdrawal. He ranted over what Kesselring did in Algeria for a week. Now you propose we abandon Voronezh?”
“We will lose it, one way or another. I am simply proposing we do not lose Model’s 2nd Panzerarmee along with it.”
Hitler heard that, turning to see the general, but with a sour expression this time. “Come to find more reinforcements?” he said darkly. “Well do not ask. The divisions we have moved to the north front will remain where they are.”
“Why?” said Manstein. “Are we planning to go to Leningrad tomorrow?”
“Why? Ask Halder why! I am told all the trains are in the south. I am told you have pulled the Brandenburg Division out of Volgograd. Who gave permission for that?”
“Being the theater commander appointed to Armeegruppe South,” said Manstein, “I need no permission. The division was needed elsewhere. Volgograd can wait. This was a wise redeployment.”
“Yes, Volgograd can wait. It should have been taken months ago! In fact, I recall that both you and Steiner promised it to me for Christmas. Well, Herr General, there was nothing under my tree this year. In fact, Sergei Kirov and his Generals have taken Tula. They have taken Orel, and now they have taken Kursk for good measure. They are also attacking at Moscow, though thank god the troops there know how to obey orders. They have held the city as I demanded, and I know exactly what you will say next. You want Model to give up Voronezh.”
“That would be wise at this juncture,” said Manstein. “Three days from now, it may not matter. The Russians will have closed the neck of that pocket, and Model will be completely cut off.”
“You have moved Steiner’s entire Korps there! What are they doing?” Hitler was now just a few degrees below the boiling point.
“He is already counterattacking, but against the northern pincer.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“There are two pincers involved, and they are very near meeting one another. Model should withdraw immediately.”
“Withdraw! Withdraw! That is all my Generals tell me whenever it snows. I will have the head of the next man who speaks that word to me!”
Now Manstein narrowed his eyes. “My Führer,” he said, stepping closer. “You may have my head any time you like, but while it remains on my shoulders, kindly allow me to use it!”
He put just a touch of anger there himself. They were words Manstein had spoken to Hitler in Fedorov’s history, during the great crisis and tragedy that had been Stalingrad. Now he spoke them here, instinctively knowing that the loss of Model’s troops would be a devastating blow to the army, and one that it would have great difficulty recovering from. Now he questioned the wisdom of even coming here to seek Hitler’s permission at all, thinking it might have been better to simply confront him with a fait accompli, ordering Model out himself. But that Army was under Rundstedt’s Armeegruppe Center, and he had no real authority there. All he could do now was make the best argument possible.
“Model is reporting the enemy has crossed the upper Oskol in force,” he said, mastering his temper. “They have cut the rail line to Prokhorovka and Kharkov. If we want to save that army, we must do so immediately. So yes, I advise he give up that useless position at Voronezh, and form a shock group here, right at Stary Oskol. He still has fuel and supplies to push southwest, and Steiner can attack up that same corridor. The two forces can link up in a few days. That army can still be saved, which would then put it in a perfect position to block the enemy advance on Kharkov, which is, after all, the final objective of their offensive.”
“And what about all these enemy divisions?” Hitler waved at the red lines drawn around Model’s Army. “They will all be free to operate against us.”
“They are mostly slow moving infantry divisions—too slow to pose a threat for weeks. All of their fast mobile divisions are already well to the southwest of the pocket, striving mightily to meet one another and finish that phase of their operations. Then they will lock arms, and go for Kharkov, shoulder to shoulder—unless we interpose Model’s Army between them, and do that now.”
“No!” Hitler flared again. “There will be no withdrawal from Voronezh! I forbid that! Look around you. Do you see von Rundstedt here? No, because he is at his position on the front obeying my orders. That is where you should be, not here, trying to stir more honey into my tea as before. Go! Leave at once. I order Steiner to counterattack, but Model stays right where he is.”
Hitler turned his back on Manstein now, hunched over the map table, his eyes narrowed with a mix of anger and pain. His miracle worker had come with the same proposal that Keitel and Jodl had pedaled. More withdrawals. They wanted to simply hand the enemy back everything that was won in those long hard months of the summer offensive. He would not allow it, and seeing that Hitler was adamant, Manstein pursed his lips, then saluted and turned to leave.
Halder watched him go, knowing that the war had, in that moment, crossed some unseen line. It was not something that could be seen on the map like the penciled in lines of the various fronts. It was something darker, more shadowed, more ominous; a turning point where he could feel that his long managed control of these events was now slipping from his grasp, and that of all the other Generals at OKW. Manstein had always been able to influence Hitler to see reason. Now even he seemed powerless to intervene.
As he watched Manstein stride off, without so much as another word, a thought came to him like the cold December wind, and he felt it for the first time, in spite of the warm fire on the hearth across the room. We could lose this war. We could lose it all. Hitler will make an end of all our best efforts, and hand us one impossible situation after another. At least Manstein has Steiner, a strong hand at the point of greatest crisis. Let us hope that is enough, because if we do lose Model’s Army….
He did not want to think about that. The cold in that line of thinking was enough to freeze the blood in his veins, as it would be now for all those troops if Manstein’s prediction were to materialize.
If Fedorov had been there, he might have seen how the lines of fate were now twisting around those of Model’s front. Manstein had avoided the debacle at Volgograd. He had correctly and wisely extricated Steiner’s Korps from the cauldron in which he sat himself down. Neither Steiner, nor Paulus, were now fighting anywhere near Volgograd. But the shape of that pocket where Model’s 2nd Panzerarmee now sat looked strangely like the one that had formed around Paulus between the Volga and the Don. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Chapter 35
Hitler’s understanding of how war was fought was in no way like that of Manstein. The Führer wanted any hard won ground held tenaciously. He clung to major cities on a point of honor, endowing them with a significance they might not truly hold in a military sense. That was certainly the case for Volgograd at that moment, and also Voronezh. Hitler Believed it was his stand fast order the previous winter that had saved the day, and kept the burned out warrens of Moscow under his control. Now he would apply the same stubborn method to this crisis.
For Manstein, the vast space of Russia was the perfect proving ground for his concept of the mobile war. That space was to be yielded whenever it might be necessary to
permit his forces to move and concentrate where they were most needed. He would even invite the enemy to advance, knowing that every mile they went took them farther from their own source of supplies, created flanks that they would have to man and guard, and presented him with numerous opportunities for a counter thrust. To master the situation, he now wanted to see Model’s army used in a mobile role, not to simply sit there like a dull iron anvil and be hammered upon by the Russians. He knew that even the hardest metal could be broken in such a situation. That was what anvils were made for, to burn, break, bend, or shape metal, or in this case to destroy it.
Model’s ability to hold as he had thus far was entirely dependent on that slender corridor for supplies, and now the Soviets were doing everything possible to choke it closed. It was as if the red army had both hands on their enemy’s neck, trying to choke the life out of him, while Steiner desperately tried to break that grip. Yet as he tried to attack up that corridor, he was met with heavy pressure on both the left and right. Two of his divisions were trying to hold back the southern pincer on the line of the Oskol River, leaving him Leibstandarte and Das Reich, along with the rebuilt 24th panzer Division from Odessa that Manstein had quietly ordered forward seven days ago, again without permission.
The arrival of both Grossdeutschland Division and the Brandenburgers created a noticeable shift in the balance of that struggle. These elite formations were fiercely competent in the attack, implacable on defense, and they had unshakable morale. Looking around the front for anything else he could find, Manstein saw that he had but one card left to play—Hermann Balck.
11th Panzer Division had been in reserve on the Chir front where it had been so instrumental in the defense there. Now he would commit this last mobile reserve, its place taken by two light armored units provided by Volkov. On the 29th of December, the last train from the south came whistling into the station at Prokhorovka, and the troops, tanks and vehicles of Balck’s divisions began to disembark and assemble.
General Balck raised the collar on his trench coat against the wind, tightening the fit of his gloves. Winter again, he thought. Another enemy offensive, and another crisis. We rule the summer, but when General Winter arrives, he is a most formidable foe. Well, my division is rested, lean and trim; ready for another fight. But this does not look like the dance I was hoping to attend. Steiner has thrown the SS right into the teeth of this enemy advance, and right between the two arms of the bear. We should have folded the line back south of Belgorod and the upper Donets, massing Steiner at Kharkov. Then they would have to come over another 100 kilometers, and supply themselves the whole way. That’s when we hit them.
Yes, it would mean leaving Model well behind enemy lines, for a time, but he had a stout heart, and can hold ground like no one else in the army. But Manstein doesn’t want to lose that army. Being so close at hand, I can see why he turned Steiner loose. Now we see what those troops are really made of. Yet things are quite different this time, are they not? We chased them half way to perdition in the summer, and now I have been racing from one crisis point to another since mid-October.
That same day a new Soviet Army was identified on the front, the 3rd Guards. It had been building up at Tambov for the last six months, built from the burned out remnants of divisions that had fought and died in the struggle against Operation Barbarossa. The men that remained were veterans three times over, and formed the hard kernel of each new division. It followed the line of attack of the northern pincer, but reaching Kursk, it suddenly turned east towards Stary Oskol. The Bear had a fish by the tail, and it wanted to take another good bite. Unfortunately, Model’s 2nd Panzerarmee was that fish. That army, with five or six fresh rifle divisions, was enough to punch through. Model was now completely cut off, and those crucial three days that might have saved his army had slipped away.
The Grossdeutschland Division was attacking to the left of the rail line in the corridor, and the Brandenburgers were to the right. Like a pair of heavy linesmen, they were grinding their way forward, and slowly pushing the enemy back. What they needed now was a good halfback to break through and race on up that line to Stary Oskol. There, Model, being no fool, had massed all his mobile divisions in an effort to break out.
That halfback was Hermann Balck.
New Year’s Eve, 1942
It was not the sort of attack he preferred to make, a desperate fourth down and two. He would much rather have his division on open ground, for broken field running was his specialty. That said, he had two strong divisions on his flanks, and so Balck formed up his shock groups, leading with Hauser’s Recon Battalion backed by the 15th Panzer Regiment, and then following up with his Panzergrenadiers. They would smash right into the 55th Guard Rifle Division, with the 17th Guard Tank Brigade on its left.
On the other side of the attack, Model had not sat idle. He had six infantry divisions east of the Don, but three were south of Voronezh, holding useless ground. His orders were to hold the city, and that he did, with three divisions, but those other three crossed the Don and moved west on the night of 29 December, and took up better defensive positions on the southern belly of the fish shaped pocket in which he found himself. This freed up his 24th Panzer Korps and allowed him to move 17th and 18th Panzer Divisions to join the units he already had fighting at Stary Oskol.
The relief attack was coming right up the road and rail line towards that town, and he massed whatever he could to make a breakout attempt as the sound of their guns drew ever nearer. In a strange way, the entire action resembled the relief attempt that had actually been mounted by Hoth to try and save Paulus, the original Operation Winter Storm. That had been eventually halted on the Myskova river by the arrival of Malinovski’s powerful 2nd Guards Army. Here, it was the 3rd Guards Army under General Dmitri Lelyushenko trying to bar the way.
Just before midnight, when all those troops would have much rather been pleasantly drunk in the arms of a woman, Balck’s intrepid division punched through and opened a hole. Behind him came the Fusilier Regiment of the Grossdeutschland Division, surging into the gap. And on the other side, they met a kampfgruppe of troops from Model’s army, jubilantly joining hands as the clock tolled out the coming of the new year. Whether they could hold that thin corridor remained undecided at that point, but they at least got through.
Manstein got the news right at midnight, pleased and proud that his troops had pushed through, but realizing the herculean task that now lay ahead. To secure that corridor, he now had to push back both those great arms of the bear trying to strangle it with the claws of their armored formations. 1st and 2nd SS were still pushing, on the left, and 3rd and 5th SS were pushing on the right, along the line of the Oskol River. Both enemy pincers had been stopped, and even pushed back in places, but for how long?
Even if they succeeded, he still had no permission to withdraw Model’s troops, there they would sit, with the the neck of that supply corridor the subject of constant enemy counterattacks. All they had accomplished, and with the best divisions in the German army, was to get back again the same dilemma Manstein had gone to OKW to try and solve. He was still enraged at Hitler’s stupidity and obstinate mindset. Steiner’s superb SS Korps would now be tied down here indefinitely. It was madness. What was he to tell Model now—sit there, like the nine panzer divisions were now sitting on the Northern Front?
Madness. There were now 15 infantry divisions, including two Luftwaffe field divisions, 3rd, 4th, 17th, and 18th Panzers, and the 10th and 29th Motorized Divisions in that pocket. That was a force on the same scale as the losses sustained at Stalingrad in Fedorov’s history.
He had to take some decisive action, and now again considered the desperate option of conspiring with Rundstedt and Model to simply do what was necessary, orders or no orders. They would certainly all lose their jobs, if not their heads, but he also had one more option—resignation. Yet if not even that could move Hitler, Manstein would then forfeit any further control or influence over the battles that surely lay ahe
ad. His duty to the army itself weighed heavily in that decision. After having drafted his threat, he summarily tore it to pieces, shaking his head.
That night, as a column of vital supplies was pushed through the embattled corridor for Model, Steiner reported that he had stopped the northern pincer and stabilized that sector of the front. The line of the Oskol was also solid. The sour grapes that Manstein could pick would now rest in that report to OKW.
‘Front stabilized,’ he cabled. ‘Supply corridor reestablished to Model necessitates continued deployment of the Army’s best mobile divisions to hold it open, unless a force of at least 6 to eight infantry divisions is sent to relieve those troops. The threat to Kharkov has been put off for the moment, though a further push for Kursk against strong enemy reserves in that sector seems impractical. Redeployment of 2nd Panzerarmee through the corridor to bring it safely within the German front near Prokhorovka would also allow Steiner to redeploy and reorganize for a new counterattack aimed at recovering lost ground. Should Model be forced to remain in place, Steiner must as well, and no further offensive action can be contemplated until the matter is resolved, nor will Steiner’s SS be able to refit in time to participate in Operation Untergang. Model’s present position remains precarious, unless a strong force could be mustered east of Bryansk and Kirov to again drive on Voronezh and threaten to encircle the enemy forces in the Kursk sector. Otherwise, 2nd Panzerarmee will remain a useless liability that will continue to require a heavy commitment by both the army and Luftwaffe to keep it in supply.’
Thor's Anvil (Kirov Series Book 26) Page 30