by David Grier
Without waiting for authorization, Küchler ordered his divisions along the Gulf of Finland between Oranienbaum and Leningrad to retreat before the Russian pincers closed; Hitler sent his approval later that day. Soviet forces attacking from the Oranienbaum Bridgehead and Leningrad linked up on 19 January, unhinging Eighteenth Army’s northern flank. From there they attacked toward Narva, on the Soviet-Estonian border, and Luga. To the south, the Russians captured Novgorod on 20 January and pushed into Eighteenth Army’s rear. Küchler requested an immediate withdrawal to the Panther Position. He warned Zeitzler the Soviets would achieve a breakthrough if they persisted in their attacks and claimed that losses were already so heavy that the retreat would release no forces.14 The following day German Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres, or OKH) finally informed the army group it would receive reinforcements, announcing that an armored division was on the way.
On the 22nd Küchler went to Hitler’s headquarters, but instead of obtaining permission to retreat he received a lecture on the importance of the Leningrad sector with regard to Finland’s political attitude, Swedish iron imports, and German naval domination of the Baltic. Promising Küchler another division, Hitler insisted the war be fought as far as possible from Germany’s borders and argued that voluntary retreats demoralized the troops.15 Despite Hitler’s wishes the Soviets continued to gain ground. On Eighteenth Army’s northern flank the Red Army advanced along the coast toward Narva, and on the army’s southern flank it continued to drive a wedge between Sixteenth and Eighteenth armies. Soviet forces attacking from Novgorod and Leningrad thrust toward Luga, threatening to ensnare three German corps. Küchler announced that Sixteenth Army’s northern flank had collapsed and requested permission to retreat behind the Luga River, but Hitler refused. A few days later the army group reported that Eighteenth Army had splintered into three groups and that it could establish a cohesive front only along the Luga. Eighteenth Army had suffered over fifty thousand casualties in only two weeks.16
Küchler again met with Hitler on 27 January, but the Nazi leader forbade any large-scale retreat. On the 28th Kinzel, acting on his own responsibility, ordered Eighteenth Army to fall back to the Luga, but Küchler countermanded the order. Kinzel complained that Küchler had been so influenced by the Führer at their last meeting that he spoke only of attacking, exclaiming in frustration that everyone except Hitler and Küchler realized the army group must retreat to the Panther Position.17 Kinzel finally convinced his commander of the desperation of Eighteenth Army’s plight, and on 30 January Küchler flew to Hitler’s headquarters and secured permission for the withdrawal to the Luga. Displeased with Küchler’s performance, the next day Hitler relieved him of command and replaced him with Field Marshal Walter Model, an expert in defensive warfare.
From Hitler’s headquarters Model ordered the army group not to retreat one step without his approval, but even Model’s determination could not prevent the Soviets from crossing the Luga at three points on the day he took command. When he arrived at army group headquarters Model found his forces reeling before the Soviet onslaught. Sixteenth Army’s left flank had crumbled, Eighteenth Army had shattered into several groups, Soviet units were advancing on Narva, and Russian spearheads had secured bridgeheads across the Luga River. Model ordered Eighteenth Army to reestablish contact with Sixteenth Army, regain and secure the west bank of the Luga, hold the narrow strip of land between Lake Peipus and the Gulf of Finland in front of Narva, and close the gap between it and a conglomeration of decimated units known as Group Sponheimer.18
But the situation continued to deteriorate. In the south Sixteenth Army came under increasingly heavy attacks, and in the north on 2 February, Soviet forces gained a bridgehead over the Narva River, although on the same day a German counterattack reestablished contact between Sixteenth and Eighteenth armies.19 By 13 February the Nazi dictator bowed to the inevitable. Zeitzler informed Model that Hitler had decided the Narva sector must be reinforced as quickly as possible and requested an immediate schedule for a retreat to the Panther Position. Hitler approved the retreat on 17 February, the same day that he sanctioned the breakout from the Cherkassy Pocket in southern Russia, and the army group concluded its withdrawal by 1 March.20
Stalin insisted that Gen. L. A. Govorov’s Leningrad Front capture Narva. On 14 February he commanded: “It is mandatory that our forces seize Narva no later than 17 February 1944. This is required both for military as well as political reasons. It is the most important thing right now.”21 The Soviets launched furious assaults against German positions in the Narva sector, but they were unable to break out of their bridgeheads to the north and south of the city. On two occasions in March Govorov renewed the attack at Narva, but German defenses in the area held.22 The Soviet winter offensive had run its course.
Although failing to encircle and destroy Eighteenth Army, the Soviets had inflicted a major defeat upon the Germans. They had driven Army Group North from positions it had held for nearly two and a half years and cleared the Leningrad area of German forces, pushing the Nazis back to the borders of Estonia and Latvia. Leningrad’s nearly nine-hundred-day siege had finally been lifted. The Russians probably would have had greater success, and possibly could have encircled and destroyed Eighteenth Army, if they had not pursued two main objectives at the same time. Instead of destroying Eighteenth Army and then breaking through German defenses on the Narva isthmus, the Soviets had tried to achieve both goals simultaneously, failing to attain either one.23 Following the defeat at Leningrad, Army Group North dug in along the Panther Position, resting and replenishing its battered formations. Hitler sent Model to command an army group in the south, and Lindemann became the army group’s commander on 31 March.
Hitler, the German Navy, and Army Group North, June 1941–May 1944
HITLER’S DETERMINATION NOT to yield ground in the Leningrad area had risked the annihilation of Eighteenth Army, which probably had escaped destruction only because Küchler convinced Hitler to permit a retreat to the Luga at the end of January. Military, economic, and diplomatic factors caused Hitler to cling stubbornly to this area. Decisions regarding the fate of Army Group North were closely connected to naval interests, for the Baltic was of vital importance to the German navy. Hitler often delayed approval for Army Group North to withdraw to a more defensible position due to concerns expressed by the navy.24 The navy required control of the Baltic to carry out submarine testing and training, and its intense desire to preserve the Baltic for this purpose was evident from the start of the Russian campaign. When Hitler informed the naval commander in chief, Erich Raeder, of his intention to invade the Soviet Union, Raeder did not share Hitler’s enthusiasm. Raeder did not object to the idea of attacking the Soviet Union per se, but he preferred to wait until after Britain’s defeat. He warned that conflict with Russia would threaten the navy’s submarine training areas in the eastern Baltic, which could disrupt the U-boat war.25 Once the invasion of the Soviet Union began, however, the navy insisted that Russia’s Baltic Fleet never be allowed to reach the open Baltic, and Hitler did not ignore the navy’s wishes. Barely a week into the campaign Hitler emphasized the urgency of gaining control of the Gulf of Finland. He commanded that the Soviet fleet must be eliminated to permit undisturbed shipping in the Baltic, especially of Swedish iron ore from Luleå.26 Several high-ranking German officers attest to Hitler’s desire to ensure the Soviet fleet’s destruction in the summer of 1941, in order to protect Baltic shipping routes and the navy’s submarine training areas.27 Once Leningrad had been isolated, the navy hopefully awaited its collapse. But Leningrad survived the winter. At the beginning of 1942, concerned the Soviets would renew the war at sea once the ice melted in the Gulf of Finland, the Naval Staff (Seekriegsleitung, or Skl) requested an air assault on the Soviet fleet. The Luftwaffe carried out six raids on Russian warships in April 1942, and German pilots reported scoring several direct hits on the battleship October Revolution, the heavy cruiser Maxim Gorkii, and numerous other ve
ssels.28
MAP 2. THE GULF OF FINLAND
To prevent the Soviet fleet from sailing into the Baltic, the navy called for a tighter blockade of Leningrad. This was a source of constant concern for the Skl, and throughout 1942 and 1943 the navy repeatedly requested the army to eliminate the Oranienbaum Bridgehead and capture the islands of Lavansaari and Seiskaari in the Gulf of Finland. Possession of these islands and the coast at Oranienbaum would enable the navy to seal off the Soviet fleet in Kronstadt Bay more effectively and with far fewer mines. On several occasions Hitler instructed the army to carry out these operations, but Soviet attacks on other sectors deprived the Germans of the troops required to carry out the assaults.29
Hitler had not abandoned his hopes of seizing Leningrad, either. In July 1942 he ordered Küchler to plan an offensive to capture the city, promising to send five divisions and heavy siege artillery from Eleventh Army, which recently had taken the Crimean stronghold of Sevastopol.30 As the army group prepared for the assault, the navy voiced its anxiety that the Soviet fleet would attempt to flee once the attack began, possibly to seek internment in Sweden. The Skl requested Eighteenth Army to shell Soviet vessels with its long-range artillery and promised to strengthen its minefields in the Gulf of Finland. Confident of success, the Skl appealed to Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) to spare shipyards and port installations in Leningrad and at the fleet’s main base at Kronstadt as much as possible, because the German navy desperately needed additional repair facilities. Raeder informed Hitler that Leningrad’s capture and an end to the threat in the Baltic would signify a great relief to the navy, because it would release warships for other theaters and expand the navy’s training areas.31 On several occasions Hitler declared his intention to make the Baltic a German lake and emphasized that he could not tolerate the presence of another great power in the Baltic.32
The Skl’s optimism, however, proved unfounded. The army group worked out detailed plans to storm Leningrad, but the Soviets frustrated Hitler’s intentions. The Russians launched furious attacks at Velikiye Luki, near the junction of Army Groups North and Center, and against German positions along Lake Ladoga. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, Eleventh Army’s commander, dispatched to these sectors divisions assembled for the attack on Leningrad, much to Hitler’s displeasure. By the beginning of October the operation’s likelihood appeared remote. In mid-October OKH confirmed this, although the attack on Leningrad had not been canceled entirely; rather, it was now envisioned primarily as an artillery assault. OKH instructed the army group to use Eleventh Army’s heavy guns to obliterate successive Soviet defensive lines on the city’s southern front. Once these positions had been flattened the army group could move its lines forward without recourse to heavy commitment of troops. By creeping up to the southern edge of Leningrad the Germans would gain more favorable positions for a later attack to capture the city or an attempt to sever its communications over Lake Ladoga.33 This scaled-down assault on Leningrad was at best a half-measure and in reality accomplished nothing.
At any rate that was the navy’s opinion, and it repeatedly complained about the army’s inaction in the Baltic theater. The army had failed to capture Leningrad in 1941, reneged on its promises to seize islands in the Gulf of Finland in the spring of 1942, and in the second half of the year had attacked neither Leningrad nor the Oranienbaum Bridgehead. The navy, therefore, had to prepare for action in the Gulf of Finland yet again in the spring of 1943. Despite the use of 13,000 mines in 1942, Soviet submarines had reached the Baltic. In 1943 the navy would have to tighten the blockade with less materiel expenditure. The Skl warned that the use of so many mines in the Gulf of Finland reduced the number available for the coasts of Norway, Holland, and France, as well as in the Mediterranean. The navy needed vessels currently tied up in the Gulf of Finland to escort submarines in the Bay of Biscay, protect North Sea convoys, and clear mines from U-boat training areas. If Russian submarines reached the Baltic again in 1943, they would disrupt shipping and U-boat training, which would delay deliveries of new submarines for action against Britain and America.34
In February 1943 the suggestion arose to withdraw Army Group North to the Narva area. The navy protested this measure in the sharpest terms and used the same arguments later that year to oppose subsequent proposals that Küchler’s forces retreat to the Panther Position. The Skl insisted that giving up the coast along the Gulf of Finland would mean that the navy could not intercept Soviet warships east of the mine barrages. The Russians then could sweep German-laid mines without interference. This would also provide the Soviets with freedom of movement to train their long-dormant vessels and permit the Russian fleet to raid the Finnish coast and Estonia up to Reval (Tallinn). The Skl declared that if Soviet surface vessels broke through the mine barriers, it would radically alter conditions in the Baltic. The navy warned of the consequences for importing Swedish iron ore and Estonian shale oil, shipping troops and supplies in the Baltic, and the training of U-boat crews. This was one of the earliest proposals for a retreat from Leningrad and, with Dönitz’s appointment as the navy’s commander in chief less than a month old, the passages referring to the U-boat war in the navy’s response were especially ominous:
Without secure training areas in the Baltic, the U-boat war will immediately come to a standstill, since U-boats can be built only at shipyards in Germany and trained nowhere else. In all likelihood, the incursion of Soviet naval forces into the Baltic, against which we have practically nothing to offer resistance, thus will have fatal consequences for the U-boat war. . . . The Skl’s view is that the intended shortening of the northern front will certainly bring advantages for the army in the East, but the result will be a fatal threat to the U-boat war.35
The Skl concluded that the retreat would be extremely detrimental to the overall conduct of the war and that an attack against the Oranienbaum Bridgehead would better serve Germany’s strategic interests. At the end of April, Adm. Wilhelm Meisel, Skl chief of staff, conferred with the OKW operations chief, Gen. Alfred Jodl, and returned with the assurance that a withdrawal to Narva had never been intended.36
Adm. Hubert Schmundt (head of Naval High Command, Baltic, or MOK Ostsee) sent Meisel a rather inauspicious report at the end of June 1943. He also complained of the army’s failure to capture Leningrad or mount attacks on the Oranienbaum Bridgehead, Lavansaari, or Seiskaari. Schmundt insisted that the time had come to eliminate the threat Russia’s Baltic Fleet posed to German submarine testing and training areas and to the import of essential ores. Schmundt also pointed out that Soviet airfields under construction on islands in the Gulf of Finland imperiled the Estonian shale oil area. Moreover, the attitude of the populace in the Baltic States, Finland, and Sweden was being influenced by Germany’s inaction in this theater. Warning that the Soviets had grown stronger each year, he insisted upon the capture of Leningrad, or at least the destruction of the Oranienbaum Bridgehead and seizing the islands, in the present year. In closing Schmundt warned: “Time does not work for us, but against us, since we must count on an increase in our eastern enemy’s strength. Viewed from the perspective of power politics, the Baltic area has the same importance for him as for us. For us, however, total domination of the Baltic is of more decisive importance than for the enemy. That is the problem!”37
Dönitz discussed these points at a meeting with Hitler in early July, and his warnings obviously had an effect upon Hitler. Deliberations regarding Army Group North’s withdrawal to the Narva area faded into the background until late summer, and Hitler informed Dönitz that he had instructed Küchler to eliminate the Oranienbaum Bridgehead.38 The failure of the German Kursk offensive and the success of subsequent Soviet operations in the south, however, prevented this attack.
The order for the construction of the Panther Position in August 1943 elicited immediate and stormy protests from the navy. The Skl objected that the proposed course of the East Wall compromised naval interests on both flanks, in the Bla
ck and Baltic seas.39 On 15 August the Skl advised OKW of its reservations, claiming that in the north the withdrawal would endanger the navy’s Baltic submarine training areas and imperil crucial shipments of Swedish iron ore to Germany. In addition, the retreat would jeopardize the navy’s ability to maintain its blockade of Russia’s Baltic Fleet, which had been confined to a very restricted area around Leningrad since 1941. The presence of Soviet warships in the Gulf of Finland would threaten German domination of the Baltic and force Dönitz to transfer to this area vessels urgently needed in other theaters. The Skl insisted that instead of retreating, positions around Leningrad must be maintained at all costs.40
Dönitz voiced his concern for these matters in a private conversation with Hitler on 18 August.41 At their next meeting Dönitz again complained of the retreat’s consequences for the navy, but Hitler assured him that the construction of the Panther Position was only a precautionary measure and that he did not intend to withdraw from the Leningrad area.42 Aware that Germany’s steadily deteriorating situation would not permit the preservation of naval interests in all theaters, Dönitz had instructed Adm. Hans-Erich Voss, his permanent representative at Hitler’s headquarters, not to object too strenuously to the evacuation of the Kuban bridgehead in southern Russia but to reserve his strongest protests for a withdrawal along the Gulf of Finland.43
On 29 December, the day before Küchler’s visit to Führer Headquarters, Capt. Heinz Assmann (Naval Operations Officer on OKW’s operations staff) informed the Skl that Hitler had not yet decided whether to permit Army Group North’s withdrawal to the Panther Position and suggested immediately preparing a report that stressed the consequences for the navy should the retreat occur. Although Assmann remarked that he did not think the Skl’s opinion would fundamentally influence Hitler’s decision, because the overall situation on the Eastern Front made the decision necessary, he thought it could limit the extent of the withdrawal, so as to facilitate the blockade of the Soviet Fleet. At the Skl situation conference on 30 December, Dönitz again emphasized the potentially fateful consequences for conditions in the Baltic if the withdrawal took place.44 When he visited Hitler’s headquarters a few days later, Dönitz marshaled his strongest argument: the Baltic problem must be considered in connection with the new submarine force, because the Baltic was the only training area for the new models of U-boats. Hitler assured Dönitz that he realized this completely and would permit no retreat. Two days prior to the Soviet offensive against Army Group North, Assmann confirmed Hitler’s intention to defend the present positions on the Gulf of Finland. Assmann cited several reasons for Hitler’s decision: objections from local commanders (obviously Lindemann); disadvantages for the air force (the vulnerability of German industry in Silesia to Soviet bombers); and “impressive” naval reasons—protection of the Baltic, U-boat training, and ore traffic. Assmann added, however, that following a conversation with Heusinger (head of OKH’s operations section), he thought it preferable to withdraw in good order before a Soviet offensive rather than risk losing the Panther line in the course of an attack. He pointed out that it would be easier to keep the Russians out of the Gulf of Finland, and away from submarine bases, in the Panther Position than if the army were pushed back to Riga.45