Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (41 page)

The Soviet soldiers continued to fire until they were killed in their foxholes or blown up by hand-grenades. In the face of such opposition how was progress possible? Furious battles were waged for every inch of ground.

The regimental headquarters of 45th Infantry Regiment was in a roadside ditch before Volinov. The mood was despondent. Reports of casualties were shattering. Colonel Chill, the regimental commander, used the field telephone, which had been laid right up to that point, to speak to division. "The Stukas must go in once more," he implored his superiors.

Just then a runner jumped down into the ditch—Lance-corporal Willumeit. Somewhat out of breath, he saluted the regimental commander. "Message from 2nd Battalion, sir: Lieutenant-Colonel Matussik sends this captured enemy map. It was taken from a Soviet major killed in action. Evidently he was ADC to a senior commander."

Colonel Chill cast one glance at the map and looked up in amazement. "My friend, for that you shall have my last cigar but one," he said to the runner, pulling out his cigar-case.

Willumeit beamed, accepted the cigar, and said, "I shall take the liberty of swapping it, Herr Oberst—I don't smoke." Everyone joined in the laughter.

The map was a precious find. It showed the Soviet Forty-eighth Army's entire position along the Verenda, until then unknown, complete with all strong-points, dummy positions, gun emplacements, and machine-gun posts.

It was largely due to this captured map that on the following day these positions were pierced in a bold action. That is how fate—or, if you prefer it, blind luck—takes a hand in battle. That was what Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia, meant when he said, "Generals must not only be brave, they must also have
la fortune."

General Sponheimer could not complain of any lack of
la fortune
before Novgorod. In addition to the captured map, Fortune—again in the form of the 45th Infantry Regiment— sent him a priceless prisoner. He had been found with a column of Soviet supply lorries by a bicycle reconnaissance detachment. He was a sapper officer from the staff of the Soviet
\
28th Rifle Division—a man from Karelia, Finnish by birth, and with no love for the Bolsheviks.

"Nix Bolshevik," he kept assuring the German second lieutenant. Shortly afterwards, when an interpreter had been fetched, an amazing sequence of events began. "I know all the fortifications," said the Karelian. "The papers are hidden in the forest," he added slyly.

"You trying to pull our leg?" the second lieutenant asked. The Karelian raised three fingers. "I swear by my mother!"

The lieutenant threatened him with his pistol. "Don't try anything funny—an ambush or something of that kind! Or you'd better start praying."

The interpreter translated. The Karelian nodded. "Let's go then," the lieutenant decided. He himself led his platoon into the near-by forest, cautiously, covering the Karelian all the time. The Karelian did not have to search long. In a thick clump of shrubs, underneath a large boulder, was his sailcloth bag—a big parcel. It contained all the fortification maps

of Novgorod as well as the plans of the minefields.

The lieutenant took the packet, complete with the Karelian, straight to the divisional Intelligence officer. The Intelligence officer grabbed it and raced across to the chief of operations, Major von der Chevallerie. The major was almost beside himself with delight. The maps clearly showed the entire defences outside Novgorod, including the defences of the city itself and the fortifications on the small island in the Volkhov between the two main parts of the city.

After that it was not difficult to pierce the Russian positions at the crucial points and to get to the edge of the city itself without too many casualties.

On the morning of 15th August the 3rd Infantry Regiment saw the famous "Novgorod the Golden" spread out in front of them in the morning sun. Novgorod—one of the most ancient Russian settlements, founded by Rurik the Conqueror as his residence in the ninth century, administered in the Middle Ages in accordance with Lübeck city law, depopulated several times by black death and cholera, always rising anew from its ashes. Novgorod, known as "the Golden" because of its important and profitable fur and salt trade with the Hanseatic cities of Germany. Because of its wealth the city was twice sacked completely within a century, by Ivan III and Ivan the Terrible, and its citizens deported or slaughtered. Forty-seven magnificent churches with fine old frescoes surrounded the Kremlin of Novgorod which commanded the bridges over the Volkhov. A proud city, never conquered. Throughout its thousand-year history Novgorod had never, until 1941, been occupied by a foreign enemy, apart from a very brief episode in the Nordic War at the beginning of the seventeenth century. But now Russia's golden city was about to suffer that humiliation.

On 15th August 1941 the 21st Infantry Division from East Prussia intercepted a signal from Moscow to the Soviet Forty-eighth Army. It ran: "Novgorod is to be defended to the last man." As chance would have it, it was the Soviet 21st Armoured Division which was to defend Novgorod to the last man, against the attack of the German 21st Infantry Division.

At 1730 hours on 15th August VIII Air Corps began a heavy air raid on the Russian positions along the city's battlements, and kept it up for twenty minutes. Novgorod stood in flames. The three infantry regiments of 21st Infantry Division lined up for the assault. From the edge of the ancient moat came the stutter of machine-guns, the crash of guns, and the plop of mortars.

To be held to the last man! "To the last man," repeated the commissars. With their pistols drawn they stood at their posts until death relieved them of their duty.

At first light on 16th August the German assault companies were inside the blazing city. At 0700 the 1st Battalion, 424th Infantry Regiment, of 126th Infantry Division—for this attack under the command of 21st Infantry Division— hoisted the swastika over Novgorod's Kremlin.

But there was no time for victory celebrations. The objective was Chudovo and the October Railway.

"Keep going," Major von Glasow, commander of the reconnaissance detachment and now leading the hurriedly formed vanguard of 21st Infantry Division, urged his men. The men of the bicycle companies of 24th and 45th Regiments pedalled for all they were worth. The cavalry squadrons moved off at a trot, followed by the motorized platoon of Panzerjägers and by heavy motorized batteries of 2nd Battalion, 37th Artillery Regiment. There were no tanks at all, and only a few self-propelled guns of Assault Gun Battery 666. The brunt of the fighting was borne by 37th Artillery Regiment, as well as the heavy artillery battalions, Mortar Battalion 9, and Army AA Battalion 272, all of them grouped under Artillery Commander 123.

- In that way the companies of 45th Infantry Regiment made their assault. On 20th August, towards noon, Sergeant Fege with his platoon rushed the road bridge leading over the Kerest stream towards Chudovo from the south-east and seized it by a surprise coup. Second Lieutenant Kahle occupied the railway bridge over the Kerest before the Soviet bridge guard was able to touch off the démolition charge.

Meanwhile the 24th Regiment took the bridge which carried the October Railway. They captured it intact. And that

was not all. That day seemed an unending string of lucky incidents. Lieutenant-Colonel Matussik with his 2nd Battalion, 45th Infantry Regiment, with great presence of mind seized the chance to drive on towards the east. There lay the huge railway bridge over the Volkhov, the line to Moscow.

In a captured lorry Matussik drove right up to the bridge. There was no guard. On and across! The battalion raced over to the other side of the river. It was shortly to become a fateful river for Army Group North.

Carl von Clausewitz, the great preceptor of the Prussian General Staff, never ceased to impress upon his disciples that a well-prepared strategic plan should be departed from only in quite exceptional circumstances. But should such a departure really become necessary, then it must be made without hesitation, radically and resolutely.

At Luga, where an insuperable Soviet defensive force had been blocking the vital main road from Daugavpils to Leningrad ever since mid-July, the German High Command followed Clausewitz's advice neither in its former nor in its latter injunction.

The original plans of the High Command envisaged the main drive towards Leningrad to be carried out along both sides of this road, which, being the only paved highway in the area, was then to serve as a supply-line. Presently, however, Colonel-General Hoepner detached Reinhardt's Corps, as already related. And later still the bulk of von Manstein's LVI Panzer Corps had to be turned round and switched to the east to Staraya Russa. Since then the battle for the town of Luga had been waged only by XXVIII Army Corps with the SS Police Division and 269th Infantry Division.

A frontal attack by these two divisions against the heavily fortified Luga bridgehead defended by five Soviet divisions, yielded no success to begin with, in spite of hard fighting and heavy losses. Fighting in the forests and swampy river valley was tricky and costly. The SS Police Division alone lost over 2000 killed and wounded. Even though, strategically speaking, the Luga position had been outmanoeuvred by the fall of Novgorod and Chudovo, the Russians nevertheless clung to their strategically worthless position.

The German Command, on the other hand, urgently needed the highway, chiefly in order to improve supplies for the northern sector. Sixteenth Army was therefore to attempt to take the strongly fortified town of Luga by a tactical outflanking move. The job was assigned to XXVIII Corps under General Wiktorin. On 13th August the Corps mounted its attack across the Luga east of the town with 122nd Infantry Division, which had meanwhile been brought up to the line.

The following incident is reported in an account of the division's attack. Private Lothar Mallach, a reserve officer aspirant of 1st Company, 410th Infantry Regiment, ran across a forest clearing with the men of his No. 1 Platoon. They came under fire from all sides. The Russians sat in well-camouflaged foxholes and opened fire only after the German infantrymen had passed them. The Russian foxholes were virtually invisible until the men were within a yard of them. They advanced with the sickening knowledge that they might be picked off from behind at any moment.

"Look out!" shouted Sergeant Pawendenat. He flung himself behind a tree-trunk and opened up with his captured Soviet machine pistol. Less than ten feet from him a Russian had fired from a foxhole.

Sergeant Tödt, leading the 1st Company because the company commander, First Lieutenant Krämer, had taken over the Battalion, was waiting behind a woodpile, directing the fire of his machine-guns at the Russian foxholes. From the far right-hand corner of the clearing came the intermittent muzzle-flashes of an automatic Russian rifle.

"Where the hell is that bastard?" Tödt grunted. He was fuming with anger. Behind him Corporal Schmidt was holding Lance-corporal Braun, the machine-gunner of 2nd Section, trying to comfort him. The lance-corporal was writhing in agony: he had been shot through his thigh and abdomen by the invisible Russian sniper to the right of the clearing.

There was another flash from the same spot. Then three more. But this time Lance-corporal Hans Müller, the gun's No. 2, who had taken over the machine-gun, had been watching intently. He opened up with his machine-gun. At the very spot where the flashes had come from the moss was torn to shreds, branches splintered, and a Russian steel helmet spun through the air. There were no more bullets from that quarter.

Sergeant Tödt ordered his company to rally. The men waited another minute. Lance-corporal Braun, the machine- gunner of 2nd Section, died in Schmidt's arms. They wrapped him in a tarpaulin. Three men gave a hand. They must move on now. They would bury him in the evening.

Panting heavily, the troops dragged their ammunition-boxes with them. Under cover of a German heavy field howitzer battery they worked their way forward into the ruins of an old Schnapps distillery.

"Look out—Russian tanks!" a shout went up. "Anti-tank gun forward!"

The 3-7-cm. gun was brought up at the double, hauled by its crew, and manoeuvred into position. Already the Russian tanks were on top of them. They were light armoured fighting vehicles—infantry support tanks of the T-26 and T-28 types. One of them started shelling the anti-tank gun. Its crew rolled under cover. The company scattered. The first tanks rumbled past.

At that moment Second Lieutenant Knaak, the Battalion Adjutant, raced forward through the undergrowth. He grabbed the carriage of the anti-tank gun and jerked it round. Aim! Fire! After the third round a T-26 was in flames.

His action was like a signal. The men of the company emerged from behind trees everywhere, clutching demolition charges and flinging them in front of the tracks of the Russian tanks. The machine-guns gave them cover. A second T- 26 was immobilized. Up on top of it—open the turret hatch —shove in a hand-grenade. Crash! The third tank was in flames. Three more turned back. The Russian infantrymen fell back with them.

Firing the machine-gun from his hip, Corporal Schmidt with Sergeant Pawendenat charged across the road, after the retreating Russians. In this way the companies of 410th, 411th, and 409th Infantry Regiments forced their way across the Luga.