“By that time the enemy could be in Kharkov,” Manstein said flatly, “or somewhere else. From the latest reports I am receiving, the forces emerging from the Oskol bridgeheads are very strong. It will take everything Steiner has left to stop them, and yes, Grossdeutschland as well. Even that may not be enough, which is why I have ordered 17th Panzer Division to prepare to entrain at Divnoye for a move north of the Don. My Führer, we simply must maneuver. We cannot sit and hold the line as you ordered during the Moscow counteroffensive.”
“Why not? We still hold Moscow, do we not? My order to stand fast saved that entire front, and I will do the very same thing here.”
“That would be most unwise.”
At that moment, a knock came at the door and an adjutant came in, saluting stiffly as he handed off a message. Manstein read it, seeing there what he expected. Then he turned to the Führer and pointed at the map.
“The Don Front has collapsed south of Boguchar. Schenken’s 17th Korps is now cut off and completely surrounded—what’s left of it. The leading spearheads of two Soviet tank corps are now reported no more than 50 kilometers from Star O’blesk. If they go another fifty, they will be over the Donets. So Steiner has his work cut out for him, and at present his Korps has not even been fully assembled. As for Paulus, his 6th Army will soon be isolated. 51st Korps is already being flanked, and in my judgement, the entire Army should also move west immediately. Otherwise that infantry will be useless to us in the ensuing counterattack. Steiner might be many days dealing with this, but the whole situation would be greatly relieved if you allow me to order Paulus west to the Donets. That is good ground for defense, and he has sufficient force to prevent any enemy crossing and cover Rostov. Steiner will need infantry to cover his right flank, and that can only come from Paulus.”
“So now you propose we yield the entire Don Bend?”
“We don’t need it. It is nothing more than empty steppe land. There is no oil there, My Führer.” There was just the hint of sarcasm in the General’s tone. “Their intentions here are very clear. They are hoping to cut off the entire 6th Army. If left where it is, a stand fast order would play directly into the enemy’s hands. The only answer to this offensive is maneuver. It will take some doing, but it is a fine art our troops are more than capable of pulling off. Yes, it will mean we yield hard fought ground as well, for the moment, but that is the only way I can assemble the mass required to smash this attack, and mark my words, if given freedom of action here, that is exactly what I will do. You trusted to my instincts last winter when Zhukov pounded on the Don Front for a long month. Trust me now.”
“We prevailed in the winter because we stood firm, and refused to yield,” said Hitler with a wag of his finger. “Steiner fought for Oblivskaya, and for Morozovsk. He fought like a tiger! His men would not take one backward step!”
“My Führer, we barely contained those offensives, and I did so only because Steiner had all four SS divisions, and to that I added Grossdeutschland and Hermann Balck’s 11th Panzer Division. It took the finest troops in the entire army to stop Zhukov, and we no longer hold that sword. Leibstandarte will be hundreds of kilometers to the west, containing what I believe was merely a spoiling attack, intended to bring our reserves there. The Wiking Division is in Syria. Balck’s 11th Panzer is in Army Group Center, defending on the Bryansk Front. Now… I need to move Model and Heinrici, and quickly. Paulus goes west at the same time. Give me this freedom of action.”
Hitler seemed hunched and withered, the quiver in his hand more noticeable, the stress apparent in every line on his face. He slowly removed his eyeglasses and then started to rattle off a litany of unrelated political and economic reasons as to why he wanted the army to hold. “If Paulus goes west, then what about the Italians south of the Don? Then they will be exposed, and that river offers only so much of a barrier. The enemy can build bridges, can they not? Mussolini has been whining over the loss of Libya for months! Can you imagine what he will say if his expeditionary army here in the east is destroyed?”
“The Don is too deep and wide there,” said Manstein, “its banks too marshy for a crossing behind the Italians. The enemy can only cross south of Tormosin, and that can easily be defended.”
“Just as the Don Front was defended?” Hitler gave him a challenging look. “If the Soviets do cross, do you think the Italians will do better than our troops? If they go, then the Rumanians go right along with them, and then we lose everything as far south as the Manych! Of course, if you had been more deliberate in launching that offensive against Elista, this would not be a problem. There would be good German troops there to stop such a move by the Soviets. Losing those allied armies could also lose me Allies. Understand?”
Manstein had to smile inwardly at that, for his troops were in the Caucasus only to wage war on a former “Ally,” and all for oil that might have been easily obtained by negotiation. Hitler was back on his old rhyme again.
“There are political considerations here beyond the military realm,” he said waving his arm. “There are economic considerations as well. If you let the Russians into the vacuum left behind by removing Paulus to the west, and if they cross the Don as I have described, then it will be all the more difficult to get to Astrakhan. That is where the really good fields are now. Astrakhan and beyond.”
The discussion had just come full circle and was back where it began, with Hitler eyeing those distant economic objectives. Nothing he had in hand would satisfy, and yet he wanted to hold on to it with all his might. The solution to his war was ever just beyond his reach. First it was Moscow, then Volgograd, and now he had substituted Astrakhan and Baku for the fruit too high on the tree. When would it end?
Chapter 23
“This cloud has a little silver in it,” said Manstein, pointing at the message he had received. “The good news in this dispatch is that Hansen has taken the oil fields at Groznyy, and largely intact. There is your oil in the short run. With Maykop, Baba Gurgur and Groznyy, we will have all the oil we need. So now will you kindly let me take charge of this battle and win it?”
“Not if you wish to yield the entire Don bend! Some other strategy must be devised.”
Manstein sighed. He had come to know Hitler as a tenacious defender of his own ideas and viewpoints on strategy, but he also knew the one time Corporal, that he had privately come to call “Effendi,” had no conception of the art of elastic defense and battle of maneuver. In Hitler’s mind, all attacks were to be defeated by stalwart defense. The army had to stand firm, and he would substitute his own iron willpower for the lack of anything needed by way of divisions on the ground. Discussions of this nature could go on for hours on end. Halder had been at his wits end, eventually resigning in utter frustration over Hitler’s interference. Now Zeitzler would spend days trying to convince Hitler on the real military requirements for all the new offensives he had concocted in the last several months. This was only round one, Manstein knew, and he had to do a little dancing and jabbing himself.
“My Führer,” he began again. “What I propose is just a temporary maneuver intended to provide me with the infantry necessary to make my counterattack. I want Paulus to move his 8th Korps here, screening Morozovsk, with Strecker’s 9th Korps on his left. Seydiltz-Kurzbach’s 51st Corps is the largest, but it is now being flanked by this Boguchar offensive on the left. So I want to move it here, to Bolshinka. Then, when Steiner finishes concentrating at Millerovo, both those Korps strike north.”
“North? Not northwest? How can they stop the enemy attack if they do not confront it directly? This counterattack makes no sense.”
“On the contrary, it makes perfect sense. A small thrust can be blocked and then rolled back. Yet an attack on the scale of this one in the south must be defeated by an indirect approach. If Steiner tries to block this attack, he only becomes embroiled in a static grind. I have selected Millerovo as Steiner’s assembly point because the terrain around it makes it very defensible. So I expect the enemy will b
ypass it to the north and west, most likely through Belovodsk, between Millerovo and Star Oblesk. They want to cross the Donets near Voroshilovgrad. I propose to let them try.”
“What? A moment ago, you claimed this could not be permitted. From there they can go to Rostov.”
“Only if they can cross in force, and stay there,” said Manstein calmly. “This is why my counterattack will swing around the enemy advance and cut it off, and to do that, I move north before I turn northwest. I would have preferred to concentrate three strong mobile divisions at Millerovo, but there wasn’t sufficient rolling stock to move them all at once. Kruger had to move Das Reich overland on the roads, and it is presently here, at Star O’blesk. So it will attack towards Kantirmirovka, to the northeast, while Steiner takes the other two divisions right up this road. That is why I need 51st Infantry Korps on the right, to cover that thrust. We defeat this attack by striking through its communications zone, not by trying to block its advance on objectives. They want to get over the Donets, but that will be their undoing if they go there now.”
“Shouldn’t Steiner attack immediately?” asked Hitler, “before the enemy gets anywhere near the Donets?” It was as if he had not heard a word Manstein had uttered.
“An attack now would be premature,” said Manstein. “He would have to make a frontal counterattack, which is a tactic normally employed against minor breakthrough where the shoulders of the penetration are still strong. In this case, the breakthrough is too wide, and the shoulders too weak because of your insistence that Paulus must defend in place. Instead, I want to let them advance, and stick their head right in the noose I am knotting up. When they have extended themselves, then we strike at their line of communications, and cut them off. That approach stops their advance without having to confront it directly as you propose. It also offers us the opportunity to destroy the forces they advance, because they will be unable to retreat. And once I do so, then you have back again all the ground you moan about losing while we maneuver.”
“Why not simply crush their spearheads as they advance?” Hitler persisted, completely overlooking everything Manstein had said about frontal counterattacks.
“Because the enemy is strongest at the outset of any breakthrough. A frontal counterattack can only be launched after the advance had dissipated and exhausted itself.”
On and on it went, for two long hours. Hitler tacked from his own ill-advised military assessments, then back to the necessity for protecting the Donets Basin, the coal mining region, the thick web of rail lines there. Manstein would argue that any enemy incursion there would only be temporary, subject to imminent destruction, and that rail lines could be repaired easily enough. Hitler wanted to stand in the center of the ring and punch from the clinch. Manstein wanted to move and dance, jabbing all the while, and then deliver his blistering right cross. Hitler could simply not understand that you could win by giving the enemy what he wanted. He could not see the series of intricate maneuvers Manstein wanted to conduct, where timing was essential to coordinate the plan. The two men would discuss and argue the matter until the break for supper, and then on into the late evening, whereupon a new and unexpected arrival would come on the scene the following morning.
* * *
In walked Himmler, his uniform fresh and well pressed, black leather gloves tight on his fists where he clutched a riding crop, and shining boots hard on the wood floors of the dining room. He snapped his heels together and offered a stiff-armed salute as Hitler turned, very surprised to see him.
“My Führer,” said Himmler. “It has come to my attention that troops are needed for an emergency situation on the front. Troops from my 3rd SS Korps can be made available, and I have come to offer their services.”
Manstein turned, a puzzled look on his face. “3rd SS Korps? I have heard nothing of this.”
“That is because the headquarters itself has only recently been established under command of Gruppenführer Jurgen Wagner—a good man. He had a battalion in the Leibstandarte before moving on to command regiments in both Das Reich and the Wiking Division, and he comes highly recommended by Steiner himself.”
“I see,” said Manstein. “What, pray tell, does he command, Herr Himmler?”
“I am moving several of the SS formations assembling for the Leningrad operation into KG Wagner to form a fire brigade unit for this situation. At the moment, this will be the Nordland Panzer Division, and one more motorized infantry brigade, the Wallonian.”
“Nordland Panzer Division?” Manstein was still nonplussed.
“It consists of two Panzergrenadier regiments, only with three battalions each, like a proper SS division. To that I have added Panzer Regiment Nord. While I have had to equip it with the F2 Panzer IV model tanks, as soon as more Panthers are available, it will transition to that model.”
“I see…. Most enterprising,” said Manstein. “But these troops have no experience, and I daresay little training for a situation like this.”
“I have corrected that. The men have been training for the last six months, and I have seen that they have adequate equipment. Now what they need is experience, correct, my Führer?” He turned to Hitler to bypass what he perceived as a stack of objections forming in Manstein’s mind. Hitler was the one man he needed to convince here, but the Führer frowned.
“I was very pleased when you came to me with the news of these new divisions,” he began, “but I thought it was clear that these troops were to be assigned to the Leningrad Operation, and remain with Armeegruppe Nord.”
“That operation is still months away,” said Himmler. “Don’t you sharpen a good knife before you use it? You saw what my men did in Spain when they were needed there. If the army had provided a few more divisions, I have no doubt they would still be there, instead of the British. This division is fully formed, and what these men need is real live training, the kind that can only come from actual combat in the field. This is a perfect situation for that, so let us kill two birds here with one stone. Let my men help stop this Russian drive on Kharkov, and they will become fanatical veterans in the process. Then, when the really big operation begins in the Summer, they will be honed sharp as a razor’s edge, and ready for that action. I am told that Dietrich has already stopped this drive towards Kharkov. Now let Wagner deal with the other pincer. It is just the perfect situation for them to prove themselves on the field.”
Hitler raised an eyebrow. “Interesting,” he said, always pleased to find new units he could pencil onto the map. He had been sleepless with worry over this Russian offensive, inwardly railing at his Generals for their perceived incompetence, though he never used that word with Manstein. Yet where Steiner went, the situation soon became stable thereafter. The SS had broken through to Volgograd, linked up with Volkov as planned. They had stopped the Russian Uranus and Saturn offensives, then moved to take Rostov before coming north to intervene at a crucial moment and halt the enemy advance on Kharkov, and they saved Model. The thought that he now had another SS unit on the scene to move about like a good chess piece was very appealing.
“My Führer,” Himmler pressed his argument when he saw Hitler thinking. “With Steiner on one side, and KG Wagner on the other, we will smash the last of this enemy offensive and certainly restore order. I beg you—let me send these men. They are the SS! They will not let you down, nor will they yield any ground you ever order them to hold. Rest assured of that.”
Hitler’s eyes moved about the map table. “Move them here,” he said with an air of finality, tapping the map at Kharkov. “Stop this second enemy pincer, and then push it back where it came from. If you can do that, Herr Himmler, then you will have proved your worth here again. You may give the orders immediately.”
Hitler had just ordered this new, untried division to stop six Soviet Armies! Himmler smiled, saluting again, for he had already ordered his men onto the trains, confident that he could persuade the Führer. Now he was glad he would not have to countermand those orders, and that his Waf
fen SS would continue to be the last ditch defenders of the Reich, and earn the lavish allocations of equipment that he could demand for his new full scale divisions building in France and Germany. It was all in a day’s work for Himmler, but this was the easy part. Now, he had another problem.
His men had to stop the Russians.
Manstein wanted to again point out that these troops had little experience, and a black SS uniform and six months training would not make them soldiers tough enough for a situation like this. He had a fist full of reports from that front, identifying all the enemy units being poured into that sector. Himmler had no idea what his men would soon be facing, then again, Manstein had nothing he could send there himself, so this was at least a stopgap measure that he could welcome. He had been pulling in Military Police battalions and rear area flak units to try and fill holes in the lines, and desperately needed troops, frustrated to no end over the fact that there were 20 infantry divisions and four mobile divisions in the Caucasus that were now sorely missed on the Don Front. So he said nothing. It was either this, or nothing, and the latter option would mean Kharkov would likely fall within a matter of days. If Himmler’s new Kampfgruppe could at least slow the enemy down, or forestall that, it would at least be something.
So the trains would soon deliver this most unexpected reinforcement, which he could further augment by moving up his last reserve, Korps Raus, with two good infantry divisions. Himmler’s new men in black would get their chance to learn how to fight. Over 70% of them were foreign volunteers, from rebellious former members of the French Foreign Legion, to surly Poles, dissident Czechs, and even some Hungarians. Himmler had looked for the tough and brutish sort, many with criminal backgrounds, all looking for some place to direct their anger and ill-mannered ways. It had taken the six months in training just to forge them into units where discipline from Waffen SS veterans and small groups of experienced German troops seeded in each battalion would build cohesion. One thing was certain about them—they were men that could fight, and now all that was needed was the proper technique.
Ironfall (Kirov Series Book 30) Page 20