War Without Garlands: Operation Barbarossa 1941-1942

by Robert Kershaw

  After walking several kilometres Becker felt the need to urinate. This posed a dilemma because he was physically unable to unbutton his trousers because his hands were thickly bandaged. What could he do? Perform the action in his pants? If he did so, he realised with sinking heart that his trousers would freeze rock hard in the extreme temperatures and cold injuries would result. A vehicle appeared ahead which he urgently flagged to a halt. Inside was a lieutenant at the wheel, who looked at him enquiringly. ‘Could you help me undo my trousers?’ Becker asked, gesticulating with bandaged hands. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked the officer. On realising, he responded‘you poor bugger’ and got out of the vehicle and led Becker to the roadside, where he extracted his penis, enabling him to pass water. The officer acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and apologised for not offering a lift; he was required at the front. He wished him well and departed. Becker had been unlucky. One moment’s lack of concentration in the fighting around the bunker had within minutes cost considerable damage. He placed his hands wrapped in socks under his armpits and continued on his way.

  The intense cold caught many inexperienced soldiers unprepared. An artillery radio operator from the 400th Artillery battalion, working alongside inadequately clothed soldiers from the ‘Grossdeutschland’ Regiment around Gorodok in temperatures of −40°C, related just how inhibiting the cold could be. He described a Soviet attack:

  ‘Next to me stood a grenadier. His hands were in his pockets and his rifle was leaned against the fence as he watched the approaching Ivans. I asked him why he didn’t shoot, and all he said was “No, you go ahead!” So I took off my headset, stood up, snatched up the rifle, took off my old mittens – they were little more than tatters anyway- adjusted the sight from 500m to 300m, poked the rifle through the fence and fired three shots. I doubt that I hit anything. Then it was all over for me; I was simply unable to insert another clip of ammunition; my hands were white and stiff. Now I was just as powerless in the face of the attacking Russians as my chum from the infantry. I felt what it was like to be unable to do anything when I knew that I should and must do something.’(5)

  Becker reached a clearing station for the wounded and was placed in a straw-covered railway goods wagon. This took him to Vyazma, a journey lasting two to three days. A remorseless itching had begun to irritate from beneath his bandages after the second day. Somebody helped him to remove his pullover to relieve the itching he felt all over his body. It was infested with lice. With some revulsion he realised what the irritation beneath his bandages portended. They were rationed and looked after at Vyazma, but the dressing was not replaced. A further train journey followed to Smolensk, lasting several more days.

  By now, the badly wounded soldiers lying in the straw-covered goods wagons were in a distressed state. Becker had to walk to hospital on arrival at the city, where a doctor examined his hand. The right one had turned almost completely black. ‘We must take it off,’ was the doctor’s diagnosis. Becker declined, pleading, ‘it would heal some time,’ which drew a disinterested, ‘do as you wish’ from the much harassed doctor. Nobody bothered to delouse him and his injured hands were hurriedly rebound. Two days later a hospital train left for the West with Becker on board. It took 10 days to reach Warsaw. The Feldwebel had lost all feeling in his hands. Driven to distraction by the lice he pleaded to his doctor, ‘I can stand it no longer, please, please take away these bloody bandages.’ As the sister cut away the dressings he saw a sight that would remain with him the rest of his life: a triple layer of lice were crawling over ‘the suppurating flesh of his hands’. Becker, in tears, had his hands disinfected and rebound. He was transported back to Germany where he spent four months recovering in a clinic. It took nine weeks before he was able to hold a spoon. Recovery came, but slowly.(6)

  Becker’s comrades with the 23rd Division were ejected from the Lama position and had to retreat 50km to west of Rzhev. Panzer Hauptmann Schroeder with the 7th Panzer Division recalled operating alongside them once again with the whole front slipping’. They were described as ‘decimated but unbroken’. Feeling guilty with the realisation that the Panzers increased his chances of survival well beyond that of the hapless infantry, he said:

  ‘I tried to support the infantry with my pair of Panzers but there was nothing more I could do. These brave men ran about with threadbare summer coats, no gloves and defective boots. They simply could not hold open ground in these freezing temperatures. Nearly all of them were afflicted by various grades of frostbite.’(7)

  During the latter part of December both sides sought to reinforce their battered forces. Hitler ordered the despatch of 17 fresh divisions to the Eastern Front from other parts of German-occupied Europe.(8) They would take considerable time to arrive. Meanwhile Stalin saw the opportunity to apply an even more ambitious counter-stroke, encouraged at the success of the initial phase of the offensive. Phase two opened during the first two weeks of January and included another attempt to raise the siege of Leningrad, combined with an offensive by the south and southwest fronts. Amphibious landings were mounted by the Caucasus Front in the Crimea. In the Central sector the Kalinin, West and Bryansk Fronts attempted a double envelopment from Rzhev in the north and Sukhinichi from the south to close on the main Moscow highway at Vyazma. Hitler was obliged to order a withdrawal to a line approximating to the original ‘Taifun’ start point the previous October. Many German units were surrounded during the withdrawal, but the move shortened the front, which freed units for counter-attacks able to seal the worst gaps torn in the front line. Another Soviet attack swept in from the north in a wide arc that sought to capture German-held Smolensk. Although the German strongpoint belt was penetrated in several areas, it soon became apparent the Soviet second stage objectives had been over-ambitious. The Russians had insufficient strength and resources to achieve a decisive victory as the drive was dispersed over too many objectives. German armies were not only spared decisive encirclement, they began to isolate over-extended Soviet thrusts which were mopped up later when reinforcements arrived. Second Shock Army under General A. A. Vlasov penetrated the rear of the German Eighteenth Army but became isolated in forest and marsh with its supply lines cut. Eventually its nine divisions and several brigades capitulated in June 1942. The Soviet Thirty-third Army with an integrated mobile cavalry group was cut off near Vyazma, as also the Twenty-ninth Army near Rzhev. This strategic spread of forces, weak in artillery and short of ammunition, enabled the ragged but still lethal forces remaining with Army Group Centre to bite back savagely. By the end of February, Stalin’s great offensive had run its course. German armies, partly reinforced by fresh divisions, re-established a continuous front in the centre. The line, tortuous in shape, reflected the limits of Russian offensive and opposing German defensive endurance.

  Frozen flesh

  The stamina of the Ostheer was tested to breaking point, an experience many would have difficulty coming to terms with mentally in later life. ‘Our division was in reality decimated in Russia,’ declared a distressed Walter Neustifter, perhaps up to 80% of its strength.’

  ‘My comrades – [a heavy weapons] company was 220 men strong with mortars, heavy mortars, heavy machine guns and two light infantry [heavy-calibre] guns. It must have been during an attack when we had two infantry guns in support. They received a direct artillery strike and the complete crew was wiped out – totally. Ten men were cut down. This didn’t just happen once [visibly upset], it must have happened a hundred times until there was nothing left.’(1)

  Killing the enemy engendered a spectrum of emotions unique and peculiar to each man. German soldier Benno Zeiser, newly arrived at the shifting front, described his feelings:

  ‘I got the leading man in my sights and clenched the bucking machine gun hard. If anybody got a dose of my stuff he was not going to get up again. You actually had the feeling you could hear the bullets go plonk into a man’s body, yet you didn’t really feel you were killing, or destroying human lives. On the cont
rary, you got a regular kick sometimes out of that sensation of the sploshing impact of the bullet. I must say I had always thought killing was much more difficult.’(2)

  The majority of soldiers suppressed their feelings automatically, adjusting to whatever was required of them. Artillery observer Helmut Pabst, fighting near Rzhev at the end of January, saw that counter-attacks have all failed’. Night after night the infantry had gone into the attack despite enduring days in the open. They knew full well,’ he said, ‘the effort was hopeless.’ One night a platoon of Pioniers, an officer and 42 men, mounted an attack. The officer came back ashen-faced with 15 men.’ Eleven had been killed, and nine seriously and seven lightly wounded. Six days later the same officer, shot through the arm, fought his way out of Russian encirclement with only two of his original 15 men. Pabst bleakly observed, no more prisoners are being taken in the front line.’(3)

  The health of the soldiers deteriorated to an alarming degree. An assessment by the senior medical officer with 167th Infantry Division highlighted concerns at the beginning of January 1942.

  ‘Something like 80% of the fighting troops are undergoing medical treatment especially for stomach and bowel, catarrh, frostbite, skin diseases and fever. The level of health and overall condition is extremely bad, lowering the body’s resistance in coping with illness and wounds. Death is often resulting from slight wounds with blood loss. Total physical and psychological collapse threatens not only the NCOs and men but the majority of officers as well.’(4)

  The front was held by such men. Conditions in the fighting line itself were almost untenable. Gefreiter Rehfeldt recalled:

  ‘The lice drove us practically insane. Our underwear was black with them, crawling not only inside our clothes but even onto our coats outside. This revolting feeling accompanied by itching could drive the most composed people to distraction. We have already scratched ourselves bloody – and the whole body, especially legs, looks scabby and lacerated. Frost injuries have developed into deep septic and bloody holes on both legs… When we have to go out to relieve a sentry post, I have to stagger along 40 minutes before the others… In the evenings, following the relief, I get in half an hour after them, wheezing from the pain… Taking off boots is only achievable at the second attempt accompanied with unbelievable effort and pain. Life is a total misery.’

  Two weeks later Rehfeldt complained he had been three days without rations and‘practically everyone has the shits on an empty stomach’. They felt as‘weak and miserable as dogs,’ and above all there was ‘the unbelievable cold!’ His frostbitten feet were becoming more swollen and septic with the passing of each day. ‘Nothing heals in this cold,’ he despairingly wrote.(5)

  Leadership combined with draconian measures kept men in the line. Unteroffizier Pabst commented on near-hopeless counterattacks mounted near Rzhev on 28 January. ‘The front line dug-outs,’ which had been lost, will be reoccupied,’ he wrote; and ‘any man leaving his post will be court-martialled and shot.’ The mood in their shelter was extremely sombre’. Pabst, however, admired his company commander, Leutnant von Hindenburg – ’from an old family’ – who kept them together.

  ‘Strain has drawn rings under his eyes. In moments when he thinks he is not being watched, a great tiredness overtakes him and he grows quite numb. But as soon as he takes the receiver in his hand, his quiet, low voice is clear and firm. He talks to his platoon commanders with such convincing warmth and confidence that they go away reassured.’(6)

  Comradeship mattered to the exclusion of all else. It sustained both sides. Leadership qualities were the cement binding it together. Discipline and mutual suffering bonded men together in an inexplicable, intangible way. Oberleutnant Beck-Broichsitter held a 4km-wide sector with 200 men from the ‘Grossdeutschland’ Regiment. (It was normally a task for two battalions numbering 1,400 men.) His men had been required to march the whole night and occupy hastily dug and inadequately prepared positions against Russian attacks. While crossing a stream, moving up, some of his men had broken through the ice and had been soaked in waist-deep water. They had then to stand around outside for ten hours in frozen trousers … Exhaustion,’ the company commander wrote, was hindering his leadership.’ When checking his perimeter a few days later Beck-Broichsitter stumbled across an amazing scene. One of his grenadiers was manning a single foxhole surrounded by 24 dead Russians sprawled all around. He had shot them all with his rifle.

  ‘He had remained completely alone at his post during a snowstorm. His relief had not turned up and despite dysentery and frost-bitten toes he stayed there a day and night and then another day in the same position.’

  ‘I promoted him to Gefreiter,’ said the impressed company commander. Another of his NCOs ‘had three children and also dysentery and frostbite.’ Exercising compassion, the officer suggested he might wish to serve a period with the logistics element to the rear. ‘No, no,’ responded the soldier. ‘Somebody else will only have to do it – I’ll stay here.’ The position was held for 20 days following a punishing routine, according to the company commander, of ‘one hour’s sentry and three hours’ rest in an overcrowded lice-ridden area, during which most had to prepare new positions’. His battalion commander consistently asked him whether he could hang on, posing the eternal leadership dilemma.

  ‘I wanted to help my company and should have said “no” and hope we would be relieved, but nobody wanted to admit it. So I said “yes” – and not only that – but that the soldiers’ morale and resolve were firm.’(7)

  It made him feel guilty.

  If leadership alone did not suffice then the ultimate price was exacted from flagging men. Oberleutnant Sonntag, a battalion commander with the 296th Infantry Division, felt duty-bound to report on Oberfeldwebel Gierz, a senior NCO, to his regimental commander. Gierz appeared incapable of keeping his men in the line. Accused of cowardice, the hapless sergeant and his men were driven back into their position. The battalion commander despaired what to do next because, as he said, he was convinced, ‘the next time the enemy came, they would run again’. He agonised over the decision. ‘It wounds my heart,’ he later wrote, when one has to consider it is German soldiers we are dealing with.’ The inevitable happened. ‘I am ashamed to report, Herr Oberst-leutnant,’ he wrote, explaining, ‘I was obliged to implement draconian measures, and ordered the company to implement the order.’ Gierz was shot.(8)

  Infantry Leutnant Erich Mende appreciated the powerlessness of the individual to make an impact in such circumstances. ‘I had extraordinary casualties,’ he said, defending a railway station south of Kaluga. ‘Of my original 196 men, 160 were dead, wounded or missing by the end of January.’ Reflecting on this experience after the war, he mused, ‘the soldier is a tragic figure’.

  ‘During war he must shoot at other soldiers and in extremis kill them, without knowing or hating them. He follows orders from people he knows and bitterly dislikes, who do not have to fire at each other. In front of us was the Red Army, defending themselves, while we in the Wehrmacht were ordered to attack them. Deserting to the Red Army was no solution for the soldiers when faced with pressure. But when we retreated, or left our position, then along came military policemen and we were up before a Court Martial.’(9)

  Meanwhile, at home in the Reich, the appeal to collect winter clothes received massive support but created uneasiness. Information was filtering back, but there was no substance to it. Wehrmacht broadcasts and announcements appeared to concentrate on apparently insignificant local actions. Many soldiers imposed a form of self-censorship in their letters, indicating they were alive but deliberately avoiding subjects that might arouse concern. Leutnant Heinrich Haape, fighting for his life, applied a certain circumspection to everything he wrote. ‘When I wrote to Martha,’ (his wife) he admitted, ‘I mentioned little of the fighting, for the people at home had not yet been conditioned to realise what a serious change had come over the situation on the Eastern Front.’(10) Sceptics were beginning to guess. SS Secret Service H
ome Front reports remarked on the contradiction between press and film reports, showing warmly clad troops at the front and the call for winter clothing. It concluded, ‘the appeal is clearly confirmation of the authenticity of the soldiers’ stories on front leave and Feldpost letters pointing to the shortage of equipments suited to the Russian cold.’(11) Armaments Minister Albert Speer said after the war:

  ‘We were all quite happy about the success of the German armies in Russia, but the first inkling that something was wrong was when Goebbels made a big “action” in the whole of Germany to collect furs and winter clothes for the German troops. We knew then something had happened which was not foreseen.’(12)

  Hildegard Gratz, working as a relief school-teacher at Angerburg in east Germany, felt uneasy teaching children‘about a hero’s death’when she clearly saw‘sitting in front of me were children whose fathers would never come home’. The children were required to participate in the ‘Winter Relief programme, collecting or knitting warm clothing. These activities aroused ‘anxious, despairing and forbidden thoughts,’ she said.(13)