Newly promoted tank commander Feldwebel Karl Fuchs with the 7th Panzer Division relayed the triumphant news to his wife. At last the whole front was moving again:
‘I’m sure that you must have heard the special radio announcements about our battle achievements. Yes, you can find me somewhere on this front near Moscow! The Russians didn’t believe that we would attack at this time of the year when the cold weather is setting in.’(7)
Another officer in the same division reflected, ‘there is a mood among the troops that we have not seen since the Suwalki [the start of ‘Barbarossa’] days. Everyone is pleased we are finally moving forward again in our sector.’ The commander of the 6th Panzergrenadier Regiment directed ‘full speed ahead’ as his half-track column steadily overtook a line of Russian vehicles on the same road. Cloaked in swirling dust, the Russians were unaware of their predicament until vehicles failing to give way were promptly shot off the road. Panic dispersed the rest. Panzergrenadier Regiment 6 was the first German unit to reach the ‘Autostrasse’ which led from Vyazma to Moscow. A private soldier riding in the half-tracks jubilantly exclaimed, ‘everything was rolling like in the good old days; only one order remained – get moving forward with everything available!’ He continued:
‘We were calling the shots once again in the advance. It made a tremendous impression on us! Wherever the enemy had convinced himself he had erected an invisible barrier to hold us up, we drove over it hardly noticing. We penetrated kilometre after kilometre further eastward and soon we were well in the rear of the enemy.’
The 7th Panzer Division War Diary described the closure of the Vyazma pocket on reaching the Moscow road as ‘a race between the 25th Panzer Regiment and the reinforced Panzergrenadier Regiment 6’. Following up the ‘fantastic success’ of the spearhead units, the infantry commander remarked, ‘we were surprised at the long columns of Russian PoWs marching against us towards the rear’. He reflected on the numerous roadside bunkers and anti-tank ditches which they passed one after the other. ‘They ought to have made our advance impossible – but they hadn’t used any of them.’(8)
Leutnant Wolfgang Koch, advancing pell-mell in the lead halftrack of Schützen Regiment 52 on Orel, with the 18th Panzer Division, recalled the men playing Tchaikovsky’s choral music on a gramophone in the back of the vehicle. It was just like France in 1940. The Luftwaffe bombed and burned villages ahead while they followed up in the Panzers. Eventually the grenadiers became tired of endless Russian mass choirs. Unlike France, the gramophone represented the only worthwhile booty they had picked up during the entire advance. After hours of ceaseless and monotonous motoring they found they could still bear the ‘Nutcracker Suite’.(9)
Following close behind came the foot infantry, visibly boosted by the sight of the damage and carnage wreaked by the Luftwaffe and Panzers leading ahead, ‘In brief – “Sieg und Heil!”,’ declared a Leutnant with the 123rd Infantry Division with heady optimism, ‘the Red Front has been smashed.’ He jubilantly added, ‘a feeling of profound good fortune has gripped us all, victory celebrations are almost within our grasp’.(10) An artillery Gefreiter supporting the 23rd Infantry Division announced: ‘we have been actively moving forward here after holding this bloody front for almost two months’. They were now ‘storming ahead’. The tempo of the advance had meant he was unable to wash or shave for eight days. His battery alone from Artillery Regiment 59 had taken 1,200 prisoners. Victory beckoned.
‘During the weeks before 2 October we had constantly seen Russian bombers and fighters, now they seem to have blown away. Either they are frightened or they haven’t got any left and the last few are being held for the fellows in the Kremlin’s towers. Instinct tells us that Russian resistance will soon be at an end. Only fought-out remnants will be left after that and those can be swiftly settled.’(11)
A German propaganda company reporting the closure of the Vyazma pocket alongside the 2nd Panzer Division sensed the momentous achievement they were witnessing.
‘We don’t know how many divisions, how many armies, how many guns and numbers of tanks are stuck in these large forests, the edges of which we can now see with our own eyes. We only know that for them there is no escape.’(12)
Oberst von Manteuffel, the commander of Panzergrenadier Regiment 6, had a less sanguine view of the situation. His predecessor had been killed in action only six weeks before. He suspected what might be coming. As soon as all his units had reported that they were set around the crucial eastern sector of the Vyazma ring he issued a simple instruction: ‘Dig in up to your necks!’(13) It was to prove a prophetic directive. Inside the loosely held pocket rings were 67 Soviet Rifle divisions, six cavalry divisions and 13 tank brigades. Once again the German ‘fast’ divisions had ‘a tiger by the tail’.
Meanwhile to the north, in the Panzergruppe 3 sector, XXXXIst Panzer Corps, spearheaded by the 1st Panzer Division, were ordered to attack beyond the forming pockets north-west towards Kalinin on the River Volga. After it had captured Staritza, northwest of Rzhev, resupply difficulties – evident even during the assembly area phase – made themselves felt. Non-combat vehicles were ordered to remain behind to husband sufficient fuel to reach the River Volga. Petrol was siphoned from these non-combatant types and reallocated to Panzers, half-tracks and artillery prime-movers. These ad hoc measures maintained the operational tempo and achieved absolute surprise, reflected in a buoyant radio transmission from the 1st Panzer operations officer to the Corps Chief of Staff, Oberst Hans Röttiger. ‘Russian units, although not included in our march-tables, are attempting continuously to share our road space’ between Staritza and Kalinin, it read. Mischievously, Röttiger was informed the intermingling of Russian with German vehicles was ‘partly responsible for the delay of our advance on Kalinin. Please advise what to do.’ The 1st Panzer Division was boldly advancing with completely open flanks. Its supporting 36th Motorised Infantry Division was languishing to the rear, held up by bad roads and fuel shortages. Oberst Röttiger offered an equally euphoric solution to the problem posed. ‘As usual,’ his message stated, ‘1st Panzer Division has priority along the route of advance – reinforce traffic control!’ In short, the unit was invited to ignore the risks and drive on.(14)
Trams were still running in the streets of Kalinin as the leading elements of the Panzer division rumbled into the city. Furious street-fighting erupted once armed Russian factory workers, still dressed in civilian overalls, realised who they were. Flamethrower Panzers drenched machine gun nests with fiery petroleum while German motorcycle soldiers were pinned down in the streets by Russian roof-top snipers. Seeking to capture the Volga river bridge intact, the lead element of a Panzergrenadier company from Regiment 113 drove at it. Both civilian and Russian military traffic could be seen streaming over the crossing. An intense battle developed for possession of a canal bridge that appeared unexpectedly before the main span. It was smoked off during the fighting by German mortars and the company commander from Regiment 113 suddenly found himself across.
As the smoke cleared, the superstructure of the 250m bridge-span beckoned. A solitary Russian sentry stood with his back towards him on the road. It was one of those bizarre incidents of war that can occur even during the most intense fighting. He was attired in a simple khaki cape and alone, his comrades having long since fled. Unable to bring himself to shoot this unsuspecting and vulnerable individual, the German officer called out: ‘Hey you! Hop it!’ He later recalled the Russian ‘obviously did not understand German, but he turned around and for a few seconds was rooted to the spot, mouth agape’. Suddenly he sped away. The German advance guard, lying around catching their breath on the south side of the bridge, let him go. ‘A race with death’ followed as they hesitatingly broke into a run to reach the other side. Facing them on the northern bank was an artillery piece, a machine gun bunker and infantry positions. ‘We received heavy fire,’ said the company commander, ‘but it was not possible to pause.’ At every running step they winced in anticipation th
at the bridge might be blown up. It was not. By the evening of 14 October, Kalinin was in German hands.(15)
The Kesselschlachten (pocket battles) at Vyazma and Bryansk were to last 10 days. Fighting raged in woods, villages and over strategic road junctions and around lakeland to finish off the last effective remaining Soviet armies before Moscow. As in earlier encirclement battles at Minsk, Smolensk and Kiev, the initial burden of the fight fell upon the motorised infantry and motorcycle battalions of the Panzer divisions. Schützen Regiment 6 belonging to the 7th Panzer Division was ordered to hold 6km-wide battalion sectors, which was two or three times greater than the norm. This could only be practically achieved by establishing interlinked strongpoints. These covered wide stretches of front with limited or often no depth. Support weapons and artillery would then attempt to dominate the inevitable gaps by fire. Mobile Panzer units were employed in a ‘fire brigade’ capacity as reserves. As 7th Panzer Division commented:
‘Inevitably it happened as it had to! With no centralised control, the Russians massed against our positions and stormed them day and night. The enemy successfully broke through several times at night. Initially with small bitterly fighting sub-units and later with dynamically led complete formations, they got through our positions. In such cases they even penetrated battalion headquarters and artillery positions, where hand-to-hand fighting broke out.’(16)
Feldwebel Karl Fuchs, commanding a Czech 38,T light tank on the edge of the Vyazma pocket, declared, ‘for days now the enemy has tried to break out of our iron encirclement, but their efforts have been in vain’. Ground mist was beginning to complicate the subjugation of a foe using every ruse to break out. Fuch’s Panzer platoon of four tanks was ordered to scout and foil such attempts occurring between infantry strongpoints. After they had destroyed two Russian tanks and beatien off a third, the fog rose from the valley feature they were covering. ‘We really let them have it with every barrel,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘tanks, anti-aircraft guns, trucks and the infantry fired on everything in sight.’ Inevitably a price was paid. The motivation driving the exhausted German soldiers was their perception this was likely to be the final battle of the campaign. Fuchs wrote sadly three days later that ‘my brave, young friend Roland just died of severe wounds’. He reflected with frustration ‘why did he have to give his life now, with the end practically in sight?’(17)
Further sacrifices were required of the 7th Panzer Division. One of the private soldiers in its 7th Infantry Regiment claimed companies could now field only two platoons. These weak units were required to hold sectors 3.5km wide, a battalion task. ‘One attack after the other was broken up by the infantrymen and supporting weapons,’ he said. Forty of his comrades from the ‘Schleevoigt’ Platoon were overrun and killed with their platoon commander at the head, having ‘fought to the last round’. Vyazma became a battle of annihilation, pursued with the pitiless ferocity of men intent on finishing the war here. Leutnant Jäger from the same regiment described the bizarre lengths Russian tank, infantry and even cavalry took to puncture the thin German lines. His men held fire until the last possible moment:
‘The first bursts caused huge losses of people and matériel. Their attack was absolutely unbelievable. Whole columns were on the move with artillery, horse columns and lorries in between coming out of the woods behind Shekulina. Without deviating they came directly at us. What targets they presented our forward artillery observers! The sent salvoes of artillery, without pause, one after the other into the enemy hordes. It caused a practically unbelievable destruction.’
Following the assaults, which continued throughout the night, the German infantrymen lay in their foxholes, virtually out of ammunition. ‘They waited, nerves at breaking point, for whatever was to come next.’(18) Soviet corpses were strewn all around.
The 2nd Panzer Division had converged on Vyazma from the south with Panzergruppe 4. On 10 October the anti-tank guns of the Kampfgruppe ‘Lubbe-Back’ were spread about 150m apart with infantry from Regiment 304 dug in between. They awaited the inevitable attacks from the interior of the pocket. At daybreak Panzers would relieve them. As the sun descended, the landscape was transformed to a dark grey, always a tense time. Panzerjäger H. E. Braun recalled, ‘the woods and shrubs in the foreground appeared to change shape from minute to minute’. Light eventually deteriorated into a misty darkness. ‘Everyone paid sharp attention’ to the scene ahead; ‘they were reliant now on hearing alone.’ Braun said:
‘They could hear the sounds of battle within the pocket. The sky to the west slowly changed to a red hue. Villages must be on fire. Now and then a sharp detonation could be picked out. Tension increased and pulses beat faster.’
Braun shared this acute anticipation. At first indiscernible, and then gradually more clearly, strange noises wafted toward the antitank and infantry positions. At about 22.00 hours the fires in the west had died down. Total darkness reigned and in the blackness the noise in front of the perimeter perceptibly increased. A horse would whinny, wagon wheels creaked and engine noises could be heard. ‘The tension was unbearable,’ said Braun as the first Very lights burst in the night sky.
‘Their blood froze in their veins at what the light showed. Hundreds, no, thousands of Russians were approaching their thin positions. Cossack cavalry were attacking too between vehicles and columns of lorries. A staccato noise of shots and strikes rang out… the monotonous automatic bapp-bapp-bapp-bapp of 20mm cannon in the ground role was constantly superseded by lighter sharp reports from the 37mm PAKs and the heavy bell-like sound of 50mm antitank guns. In between heavy and light machine guns were rattling away, intermixed now and then with several mortars and heavy-calibre infantry guns.’
From this point onward the fighting troops, Braun explained, lost all sense of time. ‘Several times the attacking Russians were shot to pieces directly before the positions.’ The rest were thrown back. Piles of bodies appeared in wave-like mounds before the German positions as the Russians stacked their dead to chest height to seek cover from fire. Complete Russian company groups tortuously crawled through heaps of their own dead to attempt sudden rushes against the German trenches. Little could be seen from these positions although the shrieks of the mortally wounded and appeals for help could clearly be heard. Russian lorries and armoured vehicles were hit until more light was provided from a petrol-laden carrier that burst into flames. The furious battle raged all night. Braun remembered how startled soldiers were when checking watches during a pause. They saw they had been fighting uninterruptedly for five hours. As dawn approached the fires on the burning lorries finally went out.
The coming light brought a sense of relief, for with it would come the reinforcing Panzers. Soldiers allowed themselves a chance to relax. ‘Suddenly the dead in the foreground started to move again,’ realised Braun with some alarm. Even though they were raked by a combined weapons barrage, ‘a sea of Red Army soldiers’ bore down on their positions. The impact of the merciless defensive fire dreadfully shaped the approaching mass, chopping parts away so that Braun described it resembling ‘the head of a huge Hydra, with ever new earth-brown forms’. With a nerve-shattering ‘Urrahscream’ the Red Army soldiers swept in waves across the German positions. Braun and his comrades, fearing for their survival, glanced anxiously ‘at the dark red colouring on the muzzle brakes of their anti-tank guns’, now glowing from the heat of constant firing.
‘Like a storm flood the [Russian] flow began to trickle over the embankments into ditches. Then small breaches were torn aside until finally the unstoppable wave flooded into the hinterland. Brave [German] infantrymen and in places even the anti-tank teams with guns were trampled into the ground by the mass of humanity driven by the certainty of death to seek an escape to the east.’
Isolated ‘islands’ of resistance held out, shooting in all directions. ‘Now the time came for the logistics men and the staff,’ Braun said. ‘Cooks fought weapons in hand from their kitchens and the rear-area drivers fought for their naked live
s.’
Panzer reinforcements in the next village drove into the counterattack, plunging and firing into the mêlée with machine gun and main armament fire. ‘They fired without aiming straight into the mass,’ said Braun, ‘hitting Red Army men who had broken through and their own men.’ Dozens of Panje carthorses galloped around out of control, ‘whinnying pitifully’. Russian platoon vehicles, completely festooned with men hanging on for dear life, rolled over the living and the dead. ‘Russian lorries raced by at full speed, completely full of soldiers,’ Braun observed, ‘lit only by the flash of weapon reports’.
On the position, the infantry fought with pistols, spades and grenades to gain space. Even the company commander fought with a smoking-hot machine pistol from his trench, fed full magazines by his orderly. Braun, fighting nearby, opened fire on Russians running toward him with their hands up. He had noticed the grenades. A huge detonation followed after the Russians pitched to the ground.
Finally it was over. ‘With tracks whirring and loud engine noises our Panzers from Regiment 3 approached their island of resistance from the rear.’ Steadily the steel-grey Panzers moved through their position on the final mopping-up. Russian survivors raised their hands and were formed into small columns to be marched off. Braun noticed their dumb, beaten-looking expressions as they were waved on.(10) It appeared had momentous victory had been achieved.
War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942 Page 43