In places, the major roads would become impassible unless plowed, which ended up creating huge snow berms on either side that would harden to near ice, restricting any lateral movement. Vehicles broke down, and the sluggish supply deliveries saw no spare parts readily available. So other vehicles were cannibalized to keep some still running, and the landscape was soon haunted by the derelict trucks, tanks and prime movers that were now good for little more than shelter from the wind for nearby troops. In some cases, the men used working prime movers to haul these abandoned vehicles into metal laagers, and set up small encampments within. Everyone wanted to be the lucky ones who could spend the long cold nights inside a truck cabin, and small fire lit beneath the trucks kept water heated in the radiators, which the men used for many purposes.
Food would freeze on the short hauls from division mess kitchens to the men on the lines, leaving the troops icy bowls of frozen lumps to eat. Frostbitten feet swelled in the boots unless socks were changed regularly to keep them dry, a most uncomfortable task. Without adequate heavy winter clothing or boots, the troops, and horses they relied on to move heavy equipment, suffered terribly. Throughout the lines, more casualties were reported from frostbite than anything else, sometimes as many as 800 per day in a given division. Frostbitten cheeks, ears, noses hands and feet were the norm, and over 1.5 million horses would die that winter from wounds, cold, lack of food, and exhaustion. In such conditions, any shelter, even that of a few buildings in an isolated farm, became extremely desirable, and towns and villages were fought over with any strength remaining on either side.
In such conditions, mounting regular patrols and recon operations was near impossible. The thick white blanket of snow covered every landmark, transforming the terrain into a uniform carpet where the troops could easily lose their sense of direction and wander off, particularly when snow blizzards reduced visibility to near zero. The troops that could move identified the proximity of a village by listening for the sound of birds that would aggregate and roost there.
Out in the long lines of the infantry divisions, it was often so cold that the bolt action rifles froze when it was found that the grease used in them was not frost resistant. Soon many machineguns became useless beneath layers of ice. Trenches could not be dug into the hard frozen ground, so troops in the field had only snow bunkers, long icy tunnels stretching through the sea of white. Against enemy artillery fire, it offered no protection at all, so the men began melting segments of the snow to try and re-freeze them to harder ice for some modest protection against small arms and shrapnel. Even a minor wound in such circumstances could become an easy death sentence.
Troops that attempted movement in the deep snow, sometimes over twenty inches, soon became utterly exhausted. It was here that the winterized Siberian divisions, dressed in warm white parkas and with a high number of ski troops, truly excelled. They had mobility, and could infiltrate through gaps in enemy lines, encircling positions and further complicating any defensive reaction to the attack. The Soviet tanks, with higher ground clearance and much wider tracks, became the most mobile force available, yet they often blundered into near invisible German infantry positions, and units who were able to fire the new Panzerfaust weapon exacted heavy tolls on the enemy.
When it did finally come, the Russian attack had one major aim—cut the Germans off in their effort to secure the remains of Moscow and consolidate for any further operations. In the east, every available unit was thrown against the German defense on the long line of the road from Serpukhov to Tula and down through Orel, backed up by strong reserves finally arriving from rear areas. They did not have far to go, for in many places, the Germans being obsessed with their drive north, the road and rail was buffered by no more than ten or fifteen kilometers behind a thin line of infantry outposts. Even though movement along that corridor was limited by the awful weather, the Soviets nonetheless struck both north and south of Tula, and at all the places the Germans had fought for so bitterly on Guderian’s drive—Gorbachevo, Chern, Mtsensk and the principal attack aimed at the city of Orel.
Dmitri Lavrinenko was in on this attack, his 4th Tank Brigade fleshed out by newly arrived T-34s. As always, he moved with purposeful determination, cutting the road north of Tula in a drive that would eventually force some hard decisions on the Germans.
“The infantry will be following us, right in the hardened snow packed down by our tank treads,” he said. “We will make a particular effort to secure any small tree lines or woods where they can then form up for a major ground attack.” He would have the services of two rifle divisions behind him, and in places where there would be no covering terrain, these troops would begin to dig snow tunnels towards the enemy positions, their long, icy cold fingers reaching for the German troops already near frozen on the open exposed ground.
In places, the Soviets paid a high price for these attacks. Where the Germans could keep their machineguns operating, the casualties were very heavy in the first wave of any attack. Then the second wave would come forward, right over the dead and slowly freezing bodies of their fallen comrades, using them as a means of getting forward faster, and even falling to the ground behind the dead to use them as a shield from enemy fire. It was a cold, ghastly business, with the white snows stained red with blood on both sides. Five, then seven, or even ten waves of infantry would continue forward like this, until the manpower of the attacking Rifle Division was simply exhausted. Then a new rifle division would form up to roll forward over that grisly trail of death, and continue the relentless attack.
Since the German defensive doctrine saw the infantry clustered around farms and hamlets, creating an archipelago of strong points, there were deliberate gaps in the line through which the enemy infantry infiltrated, particularly the Soviet ski troops. They were aided by small partisan units, rising up from ungarrisoned towns behind the German lines, and raising havoc. At times, a mounted cavalry unit provided more mobility than any motorized formation, and these units, the hardy Siberian horsemen, swept through the lines like ghostly vapors. Some of these units even pulled sleighs laden with more infantry to bolster their attacks. Not having the benefit of roads and vehicles over decades of hard life in the cruel Siberian winters, these troops were well adapted, and knew how to move in these harsh conditions, the old fashioned way.
In the beginning the Germans thought these thrusts were merely massive spoiling attacks to try and close the major line of communications up to Serpukhov. Orel was the first real crisis point. There the Soviets threw the weight and mass of three full shock armies in an all out drive to break through and reach Bryansk. Once the extent of this attack was realized, the Germans finally knew this was much more than they expected from a foe they thought was already beaten.
The aim and scope of the attack was truly ambitious. Since so many German troops had been diverted to the drive on Moscow, the massive “Kirov Pocket” still remained encircled, shaped like a huge rib eye steak well behind German lines. The Soviets still held Bryansk at the bottom, Kirov at the center, and terrain stretching fifty to eighty kilometers from there in all directions. The Germans, thinking the fall of Moscow would result in enemy capitulation, never pressed any real concerted attack to reduce this pocket, largely because they kept pulling forces off the perimeter to support their drive on Moscow. Now the Soviets were going to attempt to reach these beleaguered troops from both sides of the battlefield.
The main drive was the attack aimed at Orel, which simply overwhelmed the defense, breaking through like a flood tide of Red Army soldiers. Though it moved slowly, the Russian advance was inexorable, and left small islands of resistance behind at both Gorbachov and Metsensk. The former town would have been lost if not for the timely intervention of the new 103rd Panzer Brigade, fresh off the train just before the attack, and with good operational vehicles. It joined elements of 29th Motorized and 4th Panzer Division, and shored up a shoulder of defense that marked the southern end of the German line near the breakthrough.
/> The Soviets cut the main road at Chern to the south, and then completely surrounded the 267th Infantry Division huddled around Mtsensk. The breakthrough pushed all the way to Bolkov behind the German lines where Von Schweppenburg had his headquarters. Both he, and then Guderian himself, with the entire army command staff, had to leap onto any vehicle they could get running and flee north. Hit by the main weight of the attack, Orel could not be held, and a massive gap opened in the line over a hundred kilometers wide. Soon 18th Panzer Division was another small island surrounded south of Orel, as were the remnants of the 167th Infantry Division.
Tired and cold, Guderian found von Schweppenburg near a small village to assess the situation. “This is much bigger than we may realize,” he said. “I can feel it. Under these circumstances, with Orel overrun in the south, we have two options. We can either hold these small resistance points at Mtsensk, and Tula, keeping the benefit of the shelter the cities offer our troops. But they will end up surrounded—isolated pockets until some relief can be mounted to reach them. The only problem is finding a force we can keep moving to do that, which could take considerable time.”
“And the other option?” asked Von Schweppenburg, now a haggard man after the hard fighting and precipitous retreat he had just made with his headquarters and staff.
“The river bends south from Serpukhov, and we still control that city. We could abandon the ground to the east and pull back behind the natural front of that river. Cover will not be as good for the troops as in Tula, but that was largely held by mobile troops. I don’t think we will want to leave them in a pocket there. If we get them back over this river, then I may be able to build several operational kampfgruppes to form fire brigades.”
“I agree,” said von Schweppenburg. “Can we hold Serpukhov even long enough to get the troops back over that river?”
“Model is there,” said Guderian, and that was enough to satisfy von Schweppenburg that the place would be held. So this was what the Germans decided to do, orders going out that day. 2nd Panzer Army was strung out like a tattered rope, and now Guderian was hoping to loop it back and coil it up behind that river and build up some semblance of a mobile force again.
“I think you are correct that this is bigger than we think,” said von Schweppenburg. “The last reports I had spoke of another big push from the northwest aimed at Smolensk.”
“They are trying to reach the Kirov pocket,” said Guderian. “It was foolish to leave such a large force encircled behind our main thrust at Moscow, and I said as much long ago. That’s where most of the infantry was tied up, but since we pulled all the good divisions out to push for Moscow, that infantry could not reduce the pocket before the really cold weather set in. Now we had better get moving. The Russians are still on our heels, and they could be here any minute.”
The decision reached in that abandoned farmhouse would end up having dramatic repercussions. As news of the great winter counteroffensive reached Berlin, and reports streamed in of the loss of Orel, the abandonment of Tula under Guderian’s plan, and the threats to other key cities like Smolensk and Orsha, Hitler went ballistic. It was not the first tirade he had leveled at Army planners in OKW headquarters, but it was certainly the most severe. He ranted for over an hour, his fist pounding the map table, shaking troop markers from their positions, which he would then reset to a place of his liking. The greater disaster was that he resolved to take personal command of the field armies, and a spate of “Führer’s Directives” began to stream forth from OKW, ordering that no German division would make a withdrawal.
As for Guderian, he was summarily recalled to Berlin, where the last battle he would fight for some time would be with Hitler himself.
“What did you intend by such a stupid and untimely withdrawal? In a few days you hand the enemy back terrain our troops fought for months to acquire!”
“Had I not done so the troops would now be completely isolated. This attack was far stronger than you may realize, and the men were simply worn out.”
“And the Generals,” said Hitler. “It is obvious that you have lost any command of your senses, let along the aggressive spirit necessary for a front line commander to lead his troops. What was the purpose of this withdrawal?”
Guderian decided he could not mince words here, and so he turned to the Führer with one blunt sentence. “To save the 2nd Panzer Armee from annihilation.”
Hitler stared at him, his lower lip quivering as he tried to hold his temper in check. But the shocking candor of Guderian’s words would haunt him for days after.
Chapter 5
“Annihilation? We had only just completed the capture of Serpukhov. Your forces were preparing to mount the final drive to enfilade Moscow from the southeast.”
“That may be what you believed was happening from the vantage point of OKW,” said Guderian, “but I assure you, the reports I sent were frank and straightforward. The army had lost 80 percent of its mobility. The roads were of minimal use in the heavy snows, and off road movement was near impossible—that is for the few units which still had fuel. As for supplies, I came across one platoon of Panzergrenadiers that had been collecting the boots of their fallen comrades, slicing up the leather and boiling it for food! All the living flesh in the horses that had died by the thousands in the freezing temperatures had already been consumed.”
Hitler brushed the lock of dark hair from his forehead, his eyes deep set with dark circles, his face pallid and drawn. Guderian could not fail to notice the slight tremor in his hand. The Führer had seen the dream of victory finally come to him when his panzers swept into Moscow behind the raging flames of the fires set by the traitor Beria and his renegade NKVD. Moscow had finally fallen, and the Nazi flag flew over the Kremlin. Yet all the city was good for was rudimentary shelter in the winter, and the charred remnants of the buildings that had burned were collected to make coals to be distributed to the men on the line. The long desperate struggle had finally given him his objective, but his enemy simply refused to capitulate.
It all had a haunting echo of the fate of Napoleon’s Grand Army. That force could defeat any enemy it faced, save one—General Winter. It sat in Moscow in 1812, and the city had also burned as it had here in 1942. 130 years of European history had passed, but it seemed that nothing had been learned. Half a million men in that Army died in that dreadful winter, and it was a decisive turning point in the wars of Napoleon against his many enemies.
“How?” said Hitler, with the despair obvious on his face. “How could they have found the troops to make such an attack?”
“It is our estimation that the collapse of Volkov’s Volga Bridgehead allowed the transfer of three full armies from that sector. We also identified three more Shock Armies, all Siberian troops freshly arrived and well winterized. Their ski troops moved like the wind, right between our strongpoints. Their T-34s rolled right on after them with those wide tracks for snow movement.”
“And what about the Lions! What about the Panthers! The Tigers!”
“My Führer, where those units fought, the line was held, but there were simply too few. Only two or three of the panzer divisions had received them, and the main allotment concentrated in those special brigades could not be everywhere. One bright note was the Panzerfaust. When the infantry had that weapon, the strongpoints could not be broken by the Soviet Armor. But they simply bypassed those resistance points and moved into rear areas. If I had not pulled the Army to the line it now occupies, I would be having this discussion with Sergei Kirov, in a Soviet prison camp. My headquarters was nearly overrun, and Von Schweppenburg and I barely escaped capture, or worse.”
“Very well, very well…” Hitler waved his arm. “Under the circumstances, I find it impossible to send you back to the front as an operational commander. I will take command of 2nd Panzer Armee personally, and you will be appointed Inspector General of the Panzertruppen. Your role will now be to make an overall assessment of the Panzer arm of the Wehrmacht, identify units needing r
efit and replenishment, and coordinate with homeland production centers to see to the timely delivery of new armor to the front. Understood?”
Guderian simply nodded, and then Hitler turned his back on him. “That will be all, Herr General,” he said with no emotion.
* * *
The decision made that day at OKW would end up being all for the good, and even Guderian had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, seeing the reins of command taken from him stung, and the thought that Hitler would be trying to command his divisions from his post at OKW made him shudder. A sense of fatalistic shame fell over him, and the fatigue of these long months in the field now became utter exhaustion. After the long bitter struggle there was no sense of victory, no toast to the fallen heroes. All he had in his mouth was the taste of defeat. On the other hand, events were soon to see his Army pass to the hands of a most capable man.
On the other side of that massive pocket the Soviets had also put considerable pressure on the lines of communications from Moscow to Minsk. One main attack was pushed through to recapture Vyazma, eventually reaching the heavy wooded zone beyond. Further west, Wiktorin’s 22nd, Schubert’s 23rd, and Heinrici’s 43rd Infantry Korps were the object of a big Soviet pincer attack, the one von Schweppenburg had heard about in his hectic conference with Guderian. The left pincer stormed through Vitsyebsk, with the right pincer aimed at Smolensk on the other vital communications line leading to Moscow. The Germans did everything possible to get fresh infantry forward on the limited rail system. Orsha, west of Smolensk, became a vital communications hub that was nearly overrun by a fast moving brigade of Soviet tanks.
Turning Point (Kirov Series Book 22) Page 4