Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (26 page)

Lieutenant Hanert, commanding the 4th Company, had been the first man in the "Grossdeutschland" Regiment to be decorated with the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. He was twenty-seven when he was killed in action during the night of 14th October, shot in the abdomen by a hidden Soviet sniper in a tree. Hânert had been a typical product of the Berlin Guards Regiment school. In the Yelnya bend he had held a position against ceaseless attacks by two Soviet divisions with no more than his machine-gun company, one infantry company, and parts of other units of the "Grossdeutschland" Regiment. Under a continuous artillery barrage he gave his orders calmly and coolly, although he had been wounded three times in his arm and legs.

When the news of his death spread through the battalion during the night of 14th October the phenomenon occurred which old soldiers call "going zombie." Suddenly the Russian bursts of fire had lost their terror. The thought that this war was so cruelly, so indiscriminately killing men like Hânert, or his comrades First Lieutenant Daijes, Second Lieutenant Lemp, Second Lieutenant Baumann, Second Lieutenant Ehrmann, and Sergeants Schneider and Jonasson, and so many other splendid fellows, had turned them fatalistic. The men fought fiercely and bitterly. The Soviet attack was repulsed, and the threatened flank of the "Grossdeutschland" Infantry Regiment was covered again.

Meanwhile Second Lieutenant von Oppen with his leading group had got close to the timber-stack. From the left, where the road ran, came the noise of tank engines. Advanced artillery observers were moving forward alongside the machine-gun platoon. Over to the right, arranged in echelons, the long lines of the 3rd Battalion came into view in the grey light of dawn.

Then the first Russian Maksim machine-gun opened up. The men took cover. Suddenly the flood-gates of war were opened: artillery, mortars, 'crash-boom' guns, rifle-fire. Every yard became a trial of courage. Small groups of men collected behind every house.

Wait for it! The first man made his dash. Then the next. And then the rest. They had gained the cover of the next house. Right in front were the daredevils and the experienced old soldiers. They worked their way from one corner to the next. Finally, they reached the last houses of the estate. In front of them were some 200 yards of flat ground. Then came a wide anti-tank ditch. And some 300 yards beyond that was the large new red-brick building.

One by one they scurried over the open ground. Those who made it let themselves drop into the anti-tank ditch. From the brick building came continuous fire. If only they could get at that building. But the tanks could not clear the ditch. The advanced artillery observer had his telephone-wire severed by shell-fire and was unable therefore to direct his

batteries to shell the building.

The remainder of 2nd Company was pinned down in the anti-tank ditch. The 3rd Company was farther to the left, on the far side of the road, in front of the brickworks. The moment a head was raised Russian snipers opened up with their semi-automatic rifles. More and more men were killed. More and more were crying out: "Stretcher, stretcher!" At last the artillerymen, though suffering from a severe shortage of ammunition, managed to place a few howitzer salvos among the brickworks. The 3rd Company stormed and gained possession of it. But at once the men came under murderous machine-gun and mortar fire from the first tenement blocks on the outskirts of the town. They were forced to take cover.

The 3rd Battalion was likewise unable to make any headway. "If only we could get at that shed we could plaster this damned brick building from the flank," Sergeant Wichmann thought aloud. The three men operating his heavy machine-gun nodded.

"Let's be off then," said Wichmann. He leapt up, and scuttled across the empty ground in front of the shed. Thirty yards. Fifty yards. The Russians opened fire. The machine-gun crew were panting behind the sergeant. Only a few more steps—scarcely half a dozen. Wichmann crumpled up, severely wounded by a bullet in the abdomen. He died later on the way to the field hospital. But the men with the machine-gun made it. They assembled the gun and sprayed the windows of the red-brick building.

The 2nd Company managed to gain 50 yards. But then it was pinned down again. When the sun set on 30th October it was apparent that the attack against Tula had got stuck. The assault on Moscow from the south had lost its impetus.

There were not enough armoured forces, not enough artillery, not enough grenadier battalions.

The other formations of XXIV Panzer Corps had likewise been unable to make progress. Eberbach's tanks were halted on the road in front of heavy Russian anti-tank barriers. The armoured infantry carriers of 3rd Panzer Division, the 1st (Infantry Carrier) Company, 3rd Rifle Regiment, and Major Frank's Panzerjâgers were fighting it out with brand-new T-34s. The duel continued until late at night.

Thus, on 29th October 1941, Colonel Eberbach with the armoured spearhead of XXIV Panzer Corps got only to within three miles of Tula. The attempt to take this important town in a swift coup failed in the face of strong anti-tank and anti-aircraft defences, and the cost to the attackers was heavy. On 30th October a more carefully prepared attack with combat groups of 3rd and 4th Panzer Division and the "Grossdeutschland" Infantry Regiment likewise failed to achieve any worthwhile success. True, the 3rd Panzer Division under Major-General Breith succeeded, after heavy and costly fighting, in gaining a little ground. But the troops were utterly exhausted by the end of the day, and, because of the shocking road conditions, it had become extraordinarily difficult to supply them. An attempt was made to drop ammunition and petrol-drums from aircraft flying only 15 to 30 feet above the ground, but it did not help. Most of the drums burst on hitting the hard ground. Attacks by the Luftwaffe failed in the face of the Soviet anti-aircraft ring around Tula. On 31st October the 3rd Panzer Division at Tula had only 40 tanks left—40 out of an original 150. Thus the attack by Breith's 3rd Panzer Division once more ground to a halt on the southern edge of Tula.

The Russians were defending Tula with the utmost ferocity. They employed all available formations and service branches in order to halt Guderian's advance. For the first time major units of multiple rocket mortars, "Stalin's organ- pipes," were employed.

The down-at-heel German formations simply could not go on. They were down-at-heel and starved beyond belief. The spearhead of XLIII Infantry Corps under General Heinrici— as the general himself reported to Colonel-General Guderian —had received no bread for the past eight days. The gunners of XXIV Panzer Corps had to ration their salvos because hardly any shells were coming up along the mud-bound roads. The troops were cold and hungry, out of fuel and almost out of ammunition. Tula was saved not by the strength of the Russian defences but by the breakdown in German supplies.

General J. F. C. Fuller, one of the most authoritative of Anglo-Saxon war historians, confirms this in his book about the Second World War. He says there: "In all probability it was not so much the resistance of the Russians—strong though it was—or the effect of the weather on the Luftwaffe that saved Moscow, as the fact that the vehicles of the

German front were bogged down in the mud."

Things were not much better for the infantry of Second Panzer Army. Thus a war diary of 112th Infantry Division reports:

On 22nd October 1941 the advance began, and with it the period of the greatest difficulties of movement ever experienced by 112th Infantry Division. Even though the division had a good deal of experience in poor road conditions, what was now demanded of it vastly exceeded anything known in the past. The completely sodden forest paths, the areas of swampy marsh, and the sticky clay on open ground simply defy description. On 26th October 1941, when the division's vanguard reached the Oka sector near Utkino, the picture was as follows: all motorized vehicles were hopelessly bogged down. Those which were not actually stuck in the swamp or on soft roads were unable to move for lack of fuel. The infantry regiments had spread out into unendingly long columns: the heavy vehicles were unable to keep up and had to be manhandled along. It was even worse for the artillery, which continually had to leave guns behind. Any normal supply of foodstuffs, fodder for the horses, and fuel was out of the question. It was therefore decided to unite all motorized vehicles of the division, the Panzerjàger Battalion, all fourteen companies, the heavy squadron of the Reconnaissance Battalion 121, and the signal units of Communications Battalion 112, under the command of Major Wildhagen, who gradually collected them in Nizina, subsequently transferred them to Orel, and did not rejoin the bulk of the division until the beginning of December. From 26th to 30th October 1941 a halt was called west of the Oka to enable the units to rally again and to allow, at the same time, for the building of a bridge over the Oka at Ignatyevo.

Supply difficulties were overcome as the troops gradually learned to live off the land. Oats for the horses were found in sufficient quantity -along the road of advance, although naturally the units farther behind had greater difficulty in meeting their requirements than those farther forward. The field kitchens, in addition to meat, potatoes, and occasionally cabbage, made use of the lentils cultivated locally. The greatest problem was bread. The local Russian bread was too heavy and produced digestive upsets. For that reason some battalions set up so- called baking details which moved ahead with the advanced formations, requisitioned what flour they could, and baked their own bread. Gradually this improved in quality. During the further advance east of the Oka the roads were slightly better as the first frosts set in, but on the other hand the terrain was intersected by deep so- called rain ravines which the tired horses had the greatest difficulty in negotiating.

On 5th November 1941 the division at last reached the Plavsk-Tula highway, the divisional staff officers on horseback. The advance had been a colossal feat in view of the exceedingly difficult road and weather conditions, and this was specially mentioned in the commendation addressed to Second Panzer Army by Colonel-General Guderian.

The Panzer Army's motorized and armoured units had been almost entirely left behind on the soft roads, so that the advance was maintained exclusively by the infantry divisions.

Only the onset of frosty weather enabled the motorized units once more to resume their movement.

This account is typical of conditions among all infantry divisions on the Central Front towards the end of October 1941.

Shortly before midnight on 31st October the medical orderlies collected the wounded and killed outside the first houses on the edge of Tula. The platoon commanders dodged behind the corners of walls, into cellars, behind heaps of rubble

— wherever parties of riflemen or machine-gunners were in position. They were organizing the picket lines. "Hold on!" was the order. "Hold on until the offensive is resumed!" No one suspected that it would be three weeks until then.

On the northernmost point of Moscow's line of defence, at Kalinin, in the bridgehead which XLI Panzer Corps had established over the Volga, the divisions and combat groups of General Reinhardt's Third Panzer Army were likewise getting into difficulties. On 18th October 1941 Lieutenant-Général Maslennikov over and over again drove the Siberian battalions of his Twenty-ninth Army, reinforced by numerous artillery units, mortar batteries, and tanks, against the most forward parts of the reinforced German 1st Panzer Division which was pushing over the Volga towards the north, along the road to Torzhok. On 19th October Heydebrand's armoured combat group—the reinforced 1st Rifle Brigade—was compelled to give up the railway bridge over the Volga at Med-noye after its partial

destruction, and Maslennikov presently tried to recapture also the important railway and road junction of Kalinin itself.

The Red commissars had established 'security companies' behind the attacking formations and were threatening to open fire at them if they retreated.

On the north-western edge of the town fighting was also very fierce. Time and again the Russians made penetrations across the Volga, either with a view to recapturing the railway bridge or to cutting the XLI Panzer Corps' supply lines to Kalinin, the roads from Staritsa and Latoshino to the Volga bridgehead. More than once the situation was saved only by a hurried switch-round of the last reserves. It was a savage trial of strength. On several occasions it was General Freiherr von Richthofen's VIII Flying Corps that saved the situation by massive Stuka attacks against Russian tank concentrations and mortar batteries.

The 129th Infantry Division and the 36th Motorized Infantry Division, the latter reinforced by a motorized training brigade, defended the northern and south-eastern parts of the town. Between them the 1st Panzer Division held the Volga sector with the two bridges in the north-western district. Its 73rd Panzer Artillery Regiment, whose gunners were from Weimar, Erfurt, and Hamburg-Wandsbek, was on the southern bank of the Volga, providing artillery support for the bitterly fighting combat units and, together with several Army Artillery battalions subordinated to it, keeping down the Russian batteries on the northern edge of the town.

On the Upper Volga General Model's divisions maintained their position, but they too had become too weak to continue the offensive in a northerly direction in order, as had been planned, to meet the divisions of Army Group North who were advancing over the Valday Hills. The troops were exhausted from fighting, the battalions of 1st and llth Panzer Regiments as well as the Special Purpose Panzer Battalion, 101st Division, were greatly reduced in numbers, and infantrymen and grenadiers were discovering that the heavy weapons they had lost could no longer be replaced. In this way the mud remained victorious at Kalinin too. The offensive of Army Group Centre gradually petered out. The formations of Third Panzer Army were likewise ordered to halt until the infantry of Ninth Army caught up with them again.