Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (38 page)

 

The Finns made a tactical virtue of the necessity of having to face the Soviet Armies with numerically greatly inferior forces. They introduced the tactics of the Motti, or pocket, the precursor of the great German battles of encirclement. Fast Finnish ski troops severed the Soviet divisions' lines of communication, forced them into the forests, and at night pounced on their scattered columns. As a rule they struck silently, with the Puuko, the Finnish dagger. The Soviets lost division after division.

 

Naturally the Finns could not halt the Red colossus single-handed in the long run. When Marshal Timoshenko mounted his large-scale offensive on llth February 1940 he deployed thirteen divisions in deep echelon against 12 miles of Finnish defences. Some 140,000 men along a 12-mile front, or seven men to each yard. All this was supported by armour, artillery, and mortars.

 

In this way Stalin eventually achieved victory and seized the bases he wanted. But he dared not impose a Communist regime on Finland. A Russian general declared: "We were glad to get out of the affair. We had captured just about enough land to bury our dead in."

 

Stalin learnt his lesson from the Finnish disaster and tried as quickly as possible to remove the shortcomings which had shown up. Hitler, on the other hand, was confirmed by the Red Army's disastrous defeat in his belief that an attack on the Soviet Union would be a military walkover, and that, without any great risks, he could gain control of the Soviet sources of raw materials in order to see the war through against the Western Powers. In this sense the disastrous attack
against the Soviet Union on 22nd June 1941 was a belated result of Stalin's murder of Tukhachevskiy.

 

Stalin's crime against this military genius brought the Soviet Union to the brink of disaster; the memory of his legacy, a return to his principles and to the virtues of military leadership ultimately saved Russia and Bolshevism. An inkling of this truth was felt in the German fighting lines on the last day of the offensive against Moscow.

 

In the forest of Takhirovo, a wooded area In the Nara bridgehead before Moscow, heavily reinforced with concrete strongpoints, the 2nd Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment, took an interesting prisoner early in December—the commander of the Soviet 222nd Infantry Division. A party of sappers had brought him out, wounded, from his dug- out, the only survivor.

 

Captain Rotter, the OC 2nd Battalion, interrogated the colonel. At first the Russian was dejected and apathetic, but gradually he thawed out. This was the fifth war he had been mobilized for, he explained. Did he think Russia could still win the war, Rotter asked him. "No," was the answer. All his calls for reinforcements had produced the same reply: We have nothing left; you've got to hold out to the last man. Behind his division, the Soviet colonel explained, there were only a few Siberian units left this side of Moscow, apart from workers' battalions. But surely, Captain Rotter objected, very stubborn resistance was being offered everywhere? The colonel nodded. During the past few weeks, he said, many new officers had joined the troops—middle-aged men for the greater part, and all of them from Siberian penal camps. They were men who had been arrested during the great Tukhachevskiy purge, but who had survived in prisons and camps. "Active service at the front is their chance of rehabilitation. And if a man has a penal camp behind him death holds no terror for him," the colonel said. And softly, as though still fearing the ears of Stalin's OGPU, even in captivity, he aded: "Besides, they want to prove that they were no traitors, but patriots worthy of Tukhachevskiy."

 

When the records of this interrogation reached Army headquarters someone on Kluge's staff remarked, "The late Tukhachevskiy is in command before Moscow." A bon mot, but profoundly true.

 

PART TWO:
Leningrad
  1. Chase through the Baltic Countries
    Ostrov and Pskov-Artillery against KV-1 and KV-2 monsters —Hoepner is held back by the High Command—The swamp of Chudovo—Manstein's Corps cut off-The road to Leningrad is clear-Unsuccessful bathing party at Lake Samro.
    AN old Finnish proverb says: "Happy the man who does not have to eat his words of the previous day." Many Germans in Finland during the summer of 1941 had this proverb quoted to them. The "previous day" was Germany's attitude during the Finno—Russian winter war and the equivocal declarations of German politicians and diplomats in conection with the Russian aggression. Hitler had in effect observed a friendly neutrality towards the Soviets. Yet on 22nd June 1941 Hitler's proclamation, blared out from all public loudspeakers and announced in huge banner headlines in all newspapers, and read out to the troops along the front from the Arctic to the Black Sea, contained the phrase: "German troops are standing side by side in alliance with Finnish divisions, guarding Finland."
    When the author of the present book interviewed Marshal Mannerheim at his secret headquarters in the idyllic little forest town of St Michel, the Marshal criticized this particular phrase in the Fuehrer's proclamation. He said, "The Reich Chancellor's formula did not take full account of the situation ha international law, quite apart from the fact that it anticipated later developments." Mannerheim pointed out that, at a Press conference at the Berlin Foreign Office on 24th June, it was publicly stated that Finland was not yet formally at war with Russia. Mannerheim, however, hastened to add, "This was of no importance for the further development of the situation, for I am certain that Stalin would have attacked us in any case in order to cover his flank—Leningrad and the Baltic—no matter how much we tried to remain neutral." He paused for a moment and then added, "Only by going over to the Soviet camp could we have escaped the attack. And that would have meant the same as being defeated."
    In support of his view Mannerheim then quoted a remark made by Stalin to the Finnish Minister in Moscow shortly
    after the winter war: "I can well believe that you would like to remain neutral," Stalin had said to him, "but a country situated as your little country is cannot remain neutral. The interests of the Great Powers forbid it." Marshal Manner- heim made one more interesting remark: "I realized ever since January [1941] that the Soviet leaders envisaged the possibility of an open, rupture with Germany, that they expected an armed clash, and that they were merely playing for time to postpone its outbreak."
    All this the Marshal said very gravely, almost impassively. He spoke softly, with resignation in his voice—a
    grand seigneur
    calmly facing the inevitable and prepared to see the consequences through to the end.
    Mannerheim missed no opportunity to point out that Finland was not an ally of Germany, but, as he put it, "a fellow traveller in a war which Finland is waging for its own active defence." He said so to various officials of the German Foreign Office and the Wehrmacht, and he said so also to the clever German Minister in Finland, Herr von Blücher.
    "We don't want to conquer anything," he would repeat time and again, "not even Leningrad." There was no doubt that this gentleman, who spoke Russian with less of an accent than he spoke Finnish, whose style of life bad been moulded at the Cadet Academy of the Grand Duchy of Finland, in the Corps of Pages at the Tsar's Court, and as a Guards officer in St Petersburg, did not have his heart in the German war against Russia. He was fighting on Hitler's side for reasons of political expediency, against a common enemy.
    With a secret smile Mannerheim would relate a story which made the rounds of Helsinki just before the outbreak of the war and caused much amusement. At a tea-party in the drawing-room of a well-known Finnish lady in the autumn of 1940 a British Legation Counsellor complained that Finland had permitted German troops to travel through the country on their way to Northern Norway. His hostess retorted, "We are in a difficult situation. The Russians have extorted from us the right of passage to their strongpoint at Hangö. On what grounds could we deny the Germans the right of passage to their bases in Northern Norway?" "That's quite correct," the Englishman replied. "But most Finns are welcoming the Germans with open arms!" The old lady laughed and replied, "I'm afraid I do that myself. For the more Germans we have in our country the more peacefully I sleep at night."
    That in fact was the situation. Since the winter war, which had given Stalin only half a victory, the Finns naturally feared Moscow's revenge. That was why they were greatly relieved when in November 1940 they learnt that Hitler had firmly refused his agreement to Molotov's request in Berlin for a renewed Soviet operation against Finland.
    At a private luncheon the Finnish Foreign Minister, Witting, observed, "When Minister von Blücher reported to me in cautious terms the outcome of Molotov's visit to Berlin, and it became clear that in contrast to his earlier attitude Adolf Hitler now opposed the Russian intentions, a great load was taken off all our minds!"
    It is important to realize this background in order to understand the subsequent decisions of Germany's military 'fellow traveller' in the far north. The Finns were splendid, brave, and uncomplicated people of unequalled patriotism. One need only remember the almost legendary General Pajari who won the Finnish Knights Cross in the winter war by operating an ancient captured Soviet anti-tank gun single-handed against an enemy tank attack. The sights and the firing mechanism were out of order. Pajari aimed the gun by sighting along the barrel and fired it by hitting the bolt with an axe. In this manner he destroyed three of the four Soviet tanks. Or when his headquarters was under enemy bombardment and his staff advised a change of position he would put his hand behind his ear, pretend to be listening, and say, "I can't hear anything. You must be mistaken."
    Men like this were the secret of the almost unbelievable resistance put up by the Finns in the winter war. In the end they had to yield to an enormous superiority and to agree to a harsh peace treaty with severe losses of territory and towns. Not one of the Western Great Powers had come to their aid; even their Swedish brothers had left them in the lurch. It is not surprising that to them 22nd June 1941 represented a chance, under the powerful shield of the German Wehrmacht, to recapture from the Russians their lost territories, above all the ancient town of Viipuri, and to restore the former Finnish-Russian frontier. The German High Command, admittedly, had rather more extensive hopes of Mannerheim.
    When Army Group North under Field-Marshal Ritter von Leeb mounted its offensive on 22nd June between Zuvalki and Klaipeda it had before its eyes a clear operative objective —Leningrad.
    In the deployment directive for Operation Barbarossa it was laid down that, following the annihilation of enemy forces in Belorussia by Army Group Centre, strong units of mobile troops were to wheel to the north, where, in conjunction with Army Group North, they were to annihilate the enemy's forces in the Baltic countries and, this task completed, take Leningrad. The attack on Moscow was not scheduled until after the capture of Leningrad.
    It is important to remember the sequence of events in this military time-table. Failure to keep to it was one of the reasons for the distaster at Moscow in the winter.
    Leningrad was the jewel of European Russia. Pushkin says in a poem: "Novgorod the father, Kiev the mother, Moscow the heart, and St Petersburg the head of the Russian empire." Since St Petersburg had ceased to be St Petersburg, or even Petrograd, and had become Leningrad, the city on the Neva estuary, built on more than a hundred islands in the low-lying marshes, was no longer the head but it still was the conscience of the Red empire. It bore the name of the father of the revolution, and it was there that the revolution had started. From its munitions plants, its shipyards, its tank assembly lines, its footwear factories, and its textile mills, from its merchant ships and its naval units, had come the revolutionary vanguard of the Bolsheviks. There Lenin had begun his struggle.
    If, moreover, the strategic role of Leningrad is considered, as a fortress in the Gulf of Finland, as the naval base of the Baltic Fleet, it becomes clear that this city was an important military, economic, and political objective. To capture it would have been an inestimable victory for Hitler; to lose it would have been a terrible blow to the Bolshevik regime.
    Lieutenant Knaak did not live to see his operation succeed at the road bridge of Daugavpils. He had been mown down by a machine-gun on the right-hand ramp of the bridge, and there, though dead, he watched over his thirty-odd men standing up to furious Russian counter-attacks. If ever a Knights Cross was deserved as a reward for an operation which decided the outcome of a battle, then it was the one posthumously awarded to the assault party leader. The swift seizure of the Daugava crossings was of vital importance to the battle for the approaches to Leningrad.
    By its thrust over the Daugava Hoepner's Panzer group provided flank cover for Colonel-General von Küchler's Eighteenth Army operating along the Baltic coast and enabled it to advance across the Baltic countries. Colonel Lasch, commanding 43rd Infantry Regiment, led an advanced formation of mobile units of I Army Corps—cyclists, anti-tank gunners, AA gunners, sappers, and assault guns—straight on through a disintegrating enemy for some 60 miles via Bauska to Riga in order to bar the river crossings there too to the retreating Soviet divisions. Admittedly, there were heavy losses and the Russians succeeded in blowing up the bridges, but the objective was nevertheless achieved: the Soviet columns fleeing from Courland were unable to get across the Daugava and met their doom before Riga.
    While Küchler's Eighteenth Army was penetrating into the Latvian-Estonian area, Hoepner's Fourth Panzer Group drove across the old Russian-Estonian frontier south of Lake Peipus. The frontier had been fortified as the so-called Stalin Line—a full-scale line of defences with pillboxes and heavy field fortifications. Colonel-General Kuznetsov hurriedly tried to get some reinforcements to the key-points of the line, in particular to the railway junction of Ostrov. German aerial reconnaissance spotted the move. It was vital that Hoepner should get to Ostrov before the Soviets. Thus began General Reinhardt's great tank race to Ostrov.
    Just as 8th Panzer Division had formed the spearhead of Manstein's race to the Daugava, the spearheads of Reinhardt's XLI Panzer Corps were represented by 1st Panzer Division. And this division, under Lieutenant-General Kirchner, won the race from the Daugava bridgehead at Jekabpils across the southern part of Estonia to Ostrov. On 4th July Major-General Krüger's 1st Rifle Brigade penetrated into the town from the south with 113th Rifle Regiment reinforced by units of 1st Panzer Regiment. While the 1st Motorcycle Battalion was coming up from the south-west, Major Eckinger with his Armoured Infantry Carrier Battalion, supported by 7th Battery, 73rd Artillery Regiment, pushed through to the north. The road bridges across the Velikaya river were taken.
    Russian reinforcements, including heavy armour, spotted and reported by aerial reconnaissance, arrived exactly twenty-four hours too late to save Ostrov. They now launched their super-heavy KV-1 and KV-2 tanks against the northern part of Ostrov, but were repulsed.
    When the combat group Krüger, the vanguard of 1st Panzer Division, launched its attack against Pskov towards 1400
    hours on 5th July it came under a heavy attack by massed Soviet tanks. The motorized anti-tank guns of 1st Company, Panzerjäger Battalion 37, with their 3-7-cm. guns, were simply crushed by the heavy Soviet armoured vehicles.
    Riflemen and Panzerjägers alike again found themselves helpless, as they had been at Raseiniai and Saukotas, against these huge crawling fortresses. They fell back. The Russians rolled past the German tanks—towards Ostrov. Was there nothing to stop them?
    That was the great hour of Major Söth, commanding the 3rd Battalion, 73rd Artillery Regiment, formerly the 2nd Battalion, 56th Artillery Regiment, from Hamburg-Wandsbek. He got one of his heavy field howitzers of 9th Battery into position- on the road. Its gun-layer, Corporal Georgi, allowed the first KV-2 to get within the correct range.
    Georgi had loaded a concrete-piercing shell, such as was used against heavy pillboxes. "Fire!" As if hit by a giant fist the KV-2 was flung sideways and remained motionless. Reload—aim—fire! Another twelve Russian tanks were shot up by the gallant corporal and his crew. Other guns similarly intervened in the struggle against the Russian tanks. The action not only halted the enemy attack, but also restored to the infantrymen their self-confidence. Presently they tackled the enemy tanks with demolition charges, supported by the gunners of 3rd Battalion. Shortly afterwards Major- General Krüger was able to report: The advance continues.
    Two days later, on 7th July, 1st Panzer Regiment, heading the combat group Westhoven and forming the vanguard of 1st Panzer Division and, immediately behind it, 6th Panzer Division, launched an attack against the remainder of the Soviet armoured formations before Pskov. Farther back on their left, in echelon, came the 36th Motorized Infantry Division, the third mobile division of XLI Panzer Corps. Captain von Falckenberg, commanding the lead company, now reinforced by armoured infantry carriers of 1st Battalion, 1st Rifle Regiment, was leaning in the turret of tank No. 700 at a crossroads north of the village of Letovo, his binoculars at his eyes.
    Through his glasses he watched Second Lieutenant Fromme, whose first troop formed the vanguard of 2nd Battalion, 1st Panzer Regiment, open fire with his tank No. 711 at an approaching Soviet tank. He scored a direct hit. Smoke issued from the enemy tank, but it continued to move. It made straight for Fromme's tank and rammed it. Three Russians leapt out. Fromme too jumped down from his tank, pistol in hand. The Russians raised their hands. At that moment two other Soviet tanks came rumbling up across the field. The three prisoners, taking fresh heart, ran behind their tank. Fromme tried to fire, but his pistol jammed. One of the Russians charged him. Quick as lightning, Fromme reached behind him and snatched up the axe clipped to the caterpillar track guard. Brandishing it, he went for the Russians. They fled. Fromme scrambled back into his tank.

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