Neither Kluge nor Guderian was given time to air his views at any
length. Instead the assembled commanders were subjected to a lecture.
This took the form of a memorandum prepared by Brauchitsch and read
out by Colonel Horch.
(Halder did not attend, owing possibly to his reluctance to endure
a cross-examination about a course of action in which he had little
faith.) The substance of this was that any immediate advance toward
Moscow, or even Bryansk, was ruled out. The first task was the final
reduction of the Russian 5th Army, which pivoted on Gomel and still
bulged out in a great salient to the south, with its westerly tip
inviolate in the marshlands of the Pripet. This meant in effect that
the 2nd Panzer Army would be swung around through more than 90
degrees, to advance in a southwesterly—i.e.,
homeward—direction.
These orders were frustrating for Guderian, who must have felt the
centre of gravity of the campaign shifting from beneath his feet. He
has since claimed that Hitler "preferred a plan by which small
enemy forces were to be encircled and destroyed piecemeal and the
enemy thus bled to death," and then, having credited the Führer
with this most uncharacteristic timidity, goes on to assert, "All
the officers who took part in the conference were of the opinion that
this was incorrect." In fact, though, it is highly unlikely that
professional opinion was as unanimous as Guderian maintains. The
elimination of the major enemy salients was an orthodox prerequisite
of any further deep advance, and both the evidence which he himself
cites and that of the subsequent "Führer conference"
on 4th August would seem to indicate that, if anything, the majority
were inclined to orthodoxy.
[Aside from his personal recollections of the interchanges at the
27th July conference and two conversations, on 29th and 31st July,
with Schmundt and Bredow (see pp. 116-17), this amounts to a document
"from a reliable Service source" quoted on p. 183 of
Guderian's memoirs. This was an OKH appreciation couched in the most
general terms, and of such a vague and optimistic nature that anyone
could find in it support for his own particular arguments.]
However, in spite of the disappointing directive concerning future
operations, Guderian could find some compensation in two important
administrative changes which occurred at the same time. The Panzer
group was renamed
Armeegruppe Guderian
, and together with this
formal recognition of its commander's power and personal magnetism
came an official severing of Kluge's apron strings: "The Panzer
Group is no longer subordinate to Fourth Army."
With this new freedom Guderian immediately set about implementing
his own plans—or rather such a version of them as he considered
feasible within the loose and indeterminate framework of the OKH
directive. "Regardless of what decisions Hitler might now take,"
he wrote in his diary (and when we read of Hitler's outbursts against
his generals in 1944, it is a valuable corrective to remember what
they themselves were writing of Hitler in 1941), ". . . the
immediate need was to dispose of the most dangerous enemy threat to
... the right flank" of the Panzer group, a "need"
which entailed the mounting of an offensive on an axis at some 90
degrees to that agreed on at the conference of 27th July.
Guderian's plan for the Roslavl attack was immediately accepted by
Bock, and in the light of what followed it is reasonable to assume
that there was at least a tacit understanding between them that they
would continue to try to bring about a situation in which the advance
on Moscow would resume its momentum. On 27th and 28th July, Bock
transferred to Guderian's command an additional six infantry
divisions, of which two were to be put into the Yelnya salient to
allow the extrication of the tank forces there. However, the Panzer
divisions thus relieved were not sent down to the Roslavl area, but
withdrawn to Prudki-Pochinok for rest and maintenance. This, together
with the retention of the Yelnya salient under the command of the
Armeegruppe
must count as additional evidence that Bock still
hoped to resume an easterly advance as soon as the Roslavl battle was
ended.
While these preparations were in train, Guderian had a visit from
Colonel Rudolf Schmundt, Hitler's chief adjutant. Schmundt held an
equivocal position in the German hierarchy, but one for which it is
not hard to find duplicates. He was an ardent National Socialist, and
devoted to the
persona
of Hitler, but enjoyed at the same time
the friendship, respect, and in some measure the confidence of the
Army. Conflicting loyalties, a certain stupidity, and perhaps an
element of snobbery allowed him to take their confidences at face
value, without allowing his suspicions to be aroused, and twice he
was to be the unwitting tool of Tresckow in preparing the ground for
an assassination attempt on the Führer.
The ostensible reason for Schmundt's visit was to bring Guderian
the oak leaves to the Knight's Cross, but he lost no time in raising
the subject of the "intentions" of the
Armeegruppe
.
According to Guderian, Schmundt told him that Hitler had not in fact
made up his mind to give priority to a single objective, but that he
had three "in view." These were Leningrad, whose capture
was necessary to free the Baltic and ensure the supply route from
Sweden and the provisioning of Army Group North; Moscow, "whose
industries were important"; and the Ukraine. Guderian thereupon
urged Schmundt "with all the force of which I was capable"
to advise Hitler in favour of a direct push to capture Moscow, "the
heart of Russia." He also took the opportunity of bypassing the
normal ordnance staff channels by making a special plea for new tanks
and engine spares.
Two days later another visitor to
Armeegruppe
headquarters
brought additional evidence of indecision and, with it, some
justification for the disregard which both Bock and Guderian were
displaying for the "Gomel Plan." This was Major von Bredow,
the OKH liaison officer, who reported, "It is now considered
that the original objectives for October 1st, the line Lake
Onezhskoe-the Volga, cannot be reached by that date. On the other
hand, it is believed with certainty that the line Leningrad-Moscow
and to the south can be reached. The OKH and the Chief of the General
Staff are engaged in a thankless undertaking since the conduct of all
operations is being controlled from the very highest level.
Final
decisions have not yet been taken concerning the future course of
events."
On 1st August, Guderian launched his Roslavl offensive. The
remnants of the twenty-one fresh Russian divisions which had charged
so valiantly into the unprepared attacks of the previous week were
now reduced in effective strength to about twelve, and with only one
tank formation, the decimated 105th Brigade, to support them. They
were completely exhausted, short of ammunition, and disposed in a
fragmentary, unbalanced remnant of an offensive pattern that was
fatally vulnerable to a coordinated
Panzerblitz
. For his
attack Guderian disposed of fourteen divisions, of which four were
armoured.
[Halder shows the following total strengths in Army Group Centre
area on 1st August.
German: 42 Infantry divisions
9
Armoured divisions
7
Motorised divisions
1
Cavalry division
Russian: 26½ Infantry divisions
7
Armoured divisions
(deficient,
as concentrated mainly in Smolensk pocket,
from
which personnel but not equipment was
being
evacuated).
1
Cavalry division.
This estimate of the Russian strength is based on units identified
either in combat or by intelligence from, e.g., air reconnaissance.
It does not take account of the
Stavka
"strategic
reserve" in the Urals, of which some fourteen infantry divisions
were now on their way to the Oka. But in fact, the Ural area held no
"strategic reserve" in the generally accepted sense, being
little more than a training and transit area for the troops already
being transferred from Asiatic Russia, and there is little doubt that
at this stage the Germans enjoyed a quantitive as well as a qualitive
superiority in the sector.]
On the extreme right of the attack the 4th Panzer broke into open
country within a few hours and ripped across the Russian front, some
twenty miles behind but more or less parallel to it, south of the
Oster. The division advanced nearly thirty miles, and by the evening
of 2nd August was astride the Roslavl-Bryansk road southeast of the
town and had entered its outskirts. In the meantime the 29th
Motorised, the left claw of the pincer, pushed steadily down the
valley of the Desna. The Russian centre, under attack by seven fresh
German infantry divisions, crumbled away, the exhausted soldiers
being blown back like chaff against the steel cutters of the tanks
that lay in their rear. Retreating at a pace no faster than a man's
run, they found Roslavl barred to them by the guns of the 4th Panzer
and 29th Motorised and swung back north to Yermolino, where they ran
head on into the 292nd and 263rd Infantry. Here in this swampy and
desolate region a "pocket" formed, with the Germans daily
bringing up greater artillery concentration and the Russians
struggling ever more feebly to break out. Finally by 8th August,
Armeegruppe
reported that resistance had been "eliminated."
Some measure of the parlous state of Russian equipment can be
gauged from the fact that the Germans only claimed two hundred guns
captured (they were in the habit of including the trench mortar in
the total gun returns), and Russian strength in the pocket had been
over seventy thousand.
In fact, the battle of Roslavl may be said to have ended even
earlier than the 8th, with the capture of the town itself on the 3rd,
for on that day Guderian had ordered a Panzer striking force of three
divisions away from the main battle to probe south toward Rodnia.
[The 3rd Panzer, 10th Motorised, and 78th Division]
Thus it was one of the swiftest as well as one of the most
complete of the Wehrmacht's victories in the East. Once again there
was an empty gap in the Russian front, once again a great haunch of
the Red Army had been sliced off and thrown into the mincing machine.
But the question of exploiting this victory remained unsettled. The
more so because the battle itself had come out of an earlier version
of this same indecision.
Guderian himself had no doubts as to the right course, and insofar
as his proximity to ObdH allowed it, there is little doubt that Bock
supported him. References to "the high road to Moscow"
occur constantly in Guderian's own despatches at this time.
[Instructions to the 137th Infantry Division, 0230 hours, 2nd
August, 1941, "to continue advance during the night so as to
reach the high road to Moscow as soon as possible." Guderian,
3rd August, to General Geyr (commanding the 9th Corps), "I
pointed out to him the great importance of holding the Moscow
Highway." Guderian, 188.]
It would appear that he regarded the Roslavl operation as a
preliminary move to clear his right flank, which carried an
incidental advantage: namely, the appearance of being connected with
the OKW "Gomel Plan."
But in so tenaciously pursuing his own schemes Guderian remained
saddled with the same basic problem—the inflexible laws of
Liddell Hart's "force to space ratio." Moscow was still 150
miles due east—the butt end of his salient was nearly fifty
miles across, its flanks over a hundred deep. By his brilliant
coup
de main
at Yelnya the German commander had precipitated
Timoshenko's counterattack and thereby drawn the infantry of Army
Group Centre across the Dnieper and into the battle, but at the same
time the Panzers had remained in action, and so the very factors
which had kept the centre of gravity in his hands for those three
extra weeks now made it inevitable that there would be a pause.
Before taking another "leap" the Panzer divisions had to be
overhauled, rested, and their stocks of fuel and ammunition brought
up to establishment. The rest period of whose urgency Brauchitsch had
been persuading Hitler was long overdue. Guderian had borrowed time,
and the debt had to be repaid.
Moreover, the strategic redeployment of the Wehrmacht was already
taking effect in other sectors. The dutiful Hoth (whose 3rd Panzer
Army had not, be it noted, been renamed
Armeegruppe Hoth
) was
already swinging around to face the Valdai Hills and take up a new
role as Leeb's "right hook" in a renewed assault on
Leningrad.
[Halder noted Hoth's transfer to the control of Strauss (9th Army)
on 27th July.]
It would be no longer possible for Guderian to drive on along,
leading, as it were by the hand, the rest of Army Group Centre. The
final thrust—if such it was to be, must have the full direction
and support of OKW. All this Guderian pleaded to Bock, and Bock put,
with some qualifications, to Halder, and Halder expressed with vigour
and lucidity to Brauchitsch, but with greater discretion (it may be
thought) to Hitler.
Then, after further delay, another conference was called at Novy
Borisov. For the first time since the opening of the campaign the
army commanders were to report to the Führer, who was to attend
in person.
five
| THE LÖTZEN DECISION
There were others besides Guderian who were waiting with
heightening anxiety for the Führer's arrival at Novy Borisov.
Already during that first victorious and intoxicating summer of 1941
the headquarters of Army Group Centre had become "the immediate
centre of active operational conspiracy—a nest of intrigue and
treason." Superimposed on the strictly professional
heart-searching and disputation which were part of the centre-thrust
controversy and which affected every member of the staff, there was
an intense—even grotesque—activity by a group of officers
with political and constitutional objectives.