Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (24 page)

The two wounded servicemen stopped at a corner. The gaunt one pointed to something with his good arm and shouted :

"There they are, the Germans!"

The patrol disappeared in a dark doorway. A short while later the six men came out again, bareheaded and unarmed. They had removed the militia flashes from their army greatcoats.

"The rats are leaving the sinking ship!" a woman screamed. "Let them scram! They'll be caught!"

Slowly the crowd formed into a procession. At its head marched the two wounded, followed by a few women, and then the crowd.

Some boys of fourteen or fifteen—boys who worked in the factories—came out from the side-streets. Jeering, they joined the grown-ups. Suddenly a man unfurled a white cloth and waved it above his head like a flag. At its centre was a black swastika.

The crowd fell back and stood rooted to the ground.

"Death to the Communists!" cried the man with the flag. "Down with the Jews!"

Silence hung underneath the grey sky of Moscow. Like a sheet of rigid fear the sky hung over the people.

"The war is over!"

"Thanks be unto you, Holy Virgin, Mother of God!"

The sub-machine-gun of a security patrol put an end to the eerie scene. And the Germans did not come. Why not? After all, they had been seen crossing the motor highway and the Mozhaysk road on the approaches to Moscow—roughly half an hour's drive from the city. Where were they?

Lieutenant-Colonel Wagner had spread out his map on a case of hand-grenades. The officers of the Engineers Battalion, 19th Panzer Division, were standing around their commander. "Here"—Wagner indicated a spot on the map

—"here is Maloyaroslavets, 12 miles ahead. That's where our tanks have to get by to-morrow. And here, Podolsk, 21 miles from Moscow, is the division's target for next week."

Wagner looked up from the map: "That's why we must break through this damned pillbox position in front of us and open up the road. The tanks can't drive over the sodden fields, and the infantry who have pushed ahead south of the road are in need of supplies."

The date was 16th October. The scene was outside Ilyin-skoye, the kingpin of the first line of defence before Moscow. The positions were held by the cadets of the Podolsk Military College. The 19th Panzer Division from Lower Saxony had got stuck in front of these Soviet pillboxes, manned by officer cadets, young fanatical Communists. The Stukas had been unable to smash the pillboxes. The gunners had been no more successful. It was therefore up to Wagner's sappers now.

An assault party with two flame-throwers and high-explosive charges cautiously filtered into the flat, swampy terrain in front of the Russian lines. Bomb and shell craters provided useful cover. The German artillery put down a heavy barrage immediately in front of the Russian pillboxes. Under its cover the sappers crept right up to the concrete blocks.

The shellburst was uncomfortably close in front of them. Sergeant Tripp, leading a section of the Engineers Battalion, 19th Panzer Division, was flattening himself against the edge of a shellhole. He raised his Very pistol. One white flare went up—the arranged signal. It meant: Have reached objective. Abruptly the artillery-fire ceased.

"Now!" The flame-throwers hurled their searing jets of burning oil against the two pillboxes in the middle and on the right. The fire roared through the embrasures. Black smoke blotted out everything. The Russians had no hope of firing small-arms or throwing hand-grenades. The pillbox on the left was kept down by machine-pistol fire on the embrasures, while Lance-Corporal Vogel climbed up on its top. From above he shoved his charge through the embrasure and leapt back. There was a loud crash, a sheet of flame, and black smoke.

The second obstacle was reduced in much the same way. But then, from the concrete passage linking the pillboxes, came sudden machine-gun fire. The flame-thrower party on the right was mown down. Tripp raced across to the communication trench from the left and opened up with his machine pistol. The Russians raised their hands. Only the commissar continued to throw hand-grenade after hand-grenade until he was mown down.

They fired another Very light—a white one. The infantry farther back cheered: "They've done it." The barrier of Ilyinskoye was breached.

The 27th Panzer Regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Thomale, together with 2nd Battalion, 19th Artillery Regiment, and a battery of 8-8-cm. anti-aircraft guns, now moved off, and along the cleared road advanced towards Maloyaroslavets. In front was the 1st Company under First Lieutenant von Werthern. The companies of 74th Rifle Regiment were moving along either side of the highway.

It was 60 miles to Moscow.

The Protva river was crossed without difficulty. They kept moving. They were aiming at Verabyi on the Istya river. The bridge was intact. The crossing was furiously defended by a Soviet anti-tank gun. "All weapons, fire—and get

across that bridge," von Werthern radioed to his unit commanders. Second Lieutenant Range commanded the lead tank. Driver Kurt Wiegmann had heard the order in his earphones and needed no instruction. He engaged gear and moved off.

They had just cleared the bridge when a Soviet anti-tank gun, emplaced to the left of the steep bank, caught them. There was a crash, and the tank filled with smoke. "We're getting out!" Second Lieutenant Range ordered. They all managed to clamber out of the tank and leap into the ditch. They saw the second tank receive a direct hit and burst into flames. Only the commander got out. But already the third was crossing the bridge, swivelling its turret to 10 o'clock and firing. A direct hit on the Soviet anti-tank gun. In the teeth of Russian artillery fire from the edge of the forest a tractor with an 8-8-cm. anti-aircraft gun raced over the bridge. It went into position and at once opened fire at the Russian batteries. All right so far.

Werthern's 1st Company established a bridgehead in the face of furious Russian opposition. The Russian troops were officer cadets who fought with unbelievable bravery, time and again attacking the German tanks at close quarters.

Lieutenant-Colonel Thomale ferried over the bridge whatever parts of his 27th Panzer Regiment he could lay hands on. He was now 25 miles in front of his division, and the Istya bridgehead had to be held until the bulk of the troops came up. Thomale's combat group managed to do it. By nightfall the Russian position, built hastily during the past days but nevertheless held by strong anti-tank and artillery forces, was smashed.

The commander of 19th Panzer Division, Lieutenant-Général von Knobelsdorff, drove up to the spearhead. "We mustn't give the Russians time to dig in again," he said. "Keep going. The new objective is the Nara."

The Nara river marked the second, and presumably the last, line of defences outside Moscow.

Rain was falling. It was cold. The roads were getting muddier and muddier. The tanks were churning to a standstill. With increasing frequency the shout went up: "Russian tanks!" The T-34s struck down swiftly from the hills on their broad tracks. They were ideally constructed for mud and snow. Their toll of victims was heavy. Often it was only the 8-8-cm. anti-aircraft guns which saved the situation at the last moment. Nevertheless, the motor-cycle units and tanks of 19th Panzer Division reached the Nara. They crossed it north of the highway after the sapper battalion had built a pontoon bridge overnight in record time, though under the costly fire of Soviet mortar batteries. Would it be possible to widen the breach into a dam burst?

In a surprise coup the tanks took the high ground east of the Nara. "It's working!" the men were calling to one another. The 59th Rifle Regiment, 20th Panzer Division, temporarily subordinated to 19th.Panzer Division, was switched across the river. Everything now depended on the motor highway being reached and the strong barrier position between Gorki and Nikolskoye being smashed. The road to the Kremlin would then be open.

In spite of the soft roads the 98th Infantry Division had come up by forced marches. At Detchino it had fought its way through cunningly devised field positions and pillbox lines arranged in deep echelon and manned by Mongolians and Siberians. These men took no prisoners because they had been told that the Germans would first cut off their ears and then shoot them. For five days the furious fighting raged. The battalions suffered heavy casualties. The 282nd, 289th, and 290th Infantry Regiments were greatly reduced in number; most of the battalion and company commanders had been killed or wounded. The sapper battalion lost 100 men. But Moscow, the great objective, spurred the men on.

True, the horses were finished. And so, for that matter, were the gunners and infantrymen. To the severity of the fighting were now added the hardships of rain, cold, and lice. So far no winter clothing had arrived for the troops. But the knowledge that they were now fighting the decisive battle kept them going. They were giving the last, the very last, ounce of their strength.

On 23rd October the 290th Infantry Regiment crossed the Nara at Tarutino, south of the motor highway. The division instantly turned towards the north in order to give support to the 19th Panzer Division in clearing the Moscow highway.

The 1st and 2nd Battalions, 289th Infantry Regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel von Bose and Captain Strôhlein respectively, stormed the thickly wooded hills outside Gorki. The Russians made an immediate counter-attack and

dislodged the 289th Regiment again. On the following day the struggle continued. Every inch of ground had to be gained in bitter hand-to-hand fighting. In the end only 200 yards remained to the motor highway.

First Lieutenant Emmert, Acting O. C. 1st Battalion, 282nd Infantry Regiment, personally led the charge of his 1st Company. Its commander, Second Lieutenant Bauer, was killed at once. Men were dropping right and left. By a supreme effort the men reached the houses of Gorki and flung themselves down. The Russians fell back. True, the German troops were only in the southern part of the town, but at least they had got behind Moscow's last line of defence. From Gorki it was only 40 miles to Moscow.

"Forty miles—that's as far as from Nuremberg to Barn-berg," remarked Second Lieutenant Frey, a troop commander in the Panzer jager Battalion, 198th Division. But he himself managed only another three. His grave is just outside Gorki, at Kusolevo.

The offensive against Moscow was essentially a battle for the roads. Throughout the summer they had been vital arteries for supplies. But now, during the period of winter mud, when no farm track, let alone rough ground, was negotiable, not only the movement of supplies but in fact all operations of tanks and infantry depended on road conditions. This was a serious handicap for the attacker, but a fortunate circumstance for the defenders. A road junction covered by pillboxes and field positions could only very rarely be bypassed. It had to be taken by frontal assault. Thus the road junctions became the battlefields of the drive towards Moscow.

Gorki on the Nara was one such junction, and so was Naro-Fominsk on the Smolensk-Kaluga-Moscow railway. Krimskoye, between the Moscow motor highway and the famous postal road, was another.

Other keypoints still were Zvenigorod, Istra, Dmitrov, Tula, and Kalinin, forming a large semicircle around Stalin's capital.

These localities represented the keypoints of Soviet opposition in Moscow's second line of defence: behind them with its numerous lines of communication lurked the Red capital like a spider in its web.

More than sixty German divisions were involved in the costly fighting for Moscow. That meant sixty times an average of 5000 to 10,000 men. Every single division could deserve individual mention. But we can attempt to trace the fate of only a few—their fate along a terrible, murderous road full of human and military drama. They came so near their aim that it seemed within arm's reach. They saw the towers of the Kremlin; they stood at the bus-stops in the outer suburbs. One unit got within five miles of Moscow, and its tanks stood within nine to 18 miles of the Kremlin at the beginning of December 1941.

On they marched, the infantrymen of 78th Infantry Division, along a road pockmarked with craters and water-holes, from Vyazma towards Moscow. It was raining. Presently, for a change, snow fell. Their stomachs were rumbling.

Their field kitchens were stuck somewhere behind in the mud. Their uniforms were sodden and stiff with dirt. This was no longer the sweeping advance of the hot summer days. How long ago was that? It seemed a lifetime ago. They had marched through the summer and through the autumn. And now they were marching through the mud and slush into the winter.

While the 78th Division was moving along the right-hand side of the highway in a long, unending column, the companies of 87th Infantry Division were trudging along to the left of it. The middle was kept free for traffic in the opposite direction.

South of the motor highway, between Yukhnov and Gzhatsk, the 197th Infantry Division was struggling eastward along a bad road. On 19th October, a Sunday with rain and snow, its regiments clocked up their 930th mile of foot- slogging. Nine hundred and thirty miles!

Captain Küppers, the commander of 1st Battalion, 229th Artillery Regiment, was impatient with the rate of progress. The road he was on was so rutted and deep in mud that his artillery vehicles were hardly able to make any headway at all in the deep morass. With the permission of Lieutenant-Colonel Ruederer, the leader of the column, he turned off along the transversal road from Yukhnov to Gzhatsk, with the intention of reaching the motor highway. There, he

thought, progress would be easier and faster.

The artillerymen reached the highway. But they had not expected the picture they saw. Mud-hole after mud-hole, and pitted with deep craters, the highway was jammed tight with vehicles. There was no hope here for his horse-drawn batteries. Along the highway sector from Gzhatsk to Mozhaysk alone between 2000 and 3000 vehicles were stuck.

After what they had seen the artillerymen of 197th Infantry Division hurriedly turned back again. Back into the mud. Their speed, which had averaged 28 miles a day in the summer, had dropped to sometimes less than one and never more than three miles per day. At night, worn out with fighting, battered, filthy, lice-ridden, hungry, and weary to death, they crowded around the stoves of the miserable peasant shacks in the small villages. The wretched horses outside were pressing against one another, nibbling the ancient mossy straw on the low roofs. Inside the troops were drying their uniforms. And if any of them asked, "Any idea where we are?" he would get the plain soldier's answer: "Right up the arsehole of Europe!" The following morning they would trudge on again, on and on, in the track of the motorized divisions. On and on, towards Moscow.