Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (42 page)

The villages of Chepino and Volok, the notorious railway embankment, the wrecked distillery, the swampy patches of woodland, and the old wooden hunting lodge of the Tsars right in the middle of the forest, which was reduced to ashes by heavy shellfire—all these were scenes of exceedingly heavy fighting for General Macholz and his 122nd Infantry Division.

During the next seven days the battalions fought their way forward to the last natural obstacle of their offensive—the Oredezh river, up to 500 yards wide in some places, between marshy banks. Once that river was crossed it would be possible to drive through to the great Leningrad highway far behind Luga, cut the highway, and take the strongpoint of Luga from the North. That then was the plan.

The first wave of the attack was to be provided by 1st Battalion, 409th Infantry Regiment. The idea was if possible to get across the river unnoticed, to take the village of Panikovo in a surprise move, and to roll up the Russian defences covering the highway.

In the garden of a fisherman's cottage Captain Reuter, the battalion commander, was sitting with his company commanders, discussing the operation. The ground was favourable. The German river-bank was higher than the northern bank held by the Russians. As a result, there was a good view of the ground across the river: a freshly dug anti-tank ditch ran from one edge of the wood to the other, in front of the village, but there was no indication of what happened inside the wood. Nor, of course, what lay behind it.

The German bank dropped down to the river fairly steeply. But there were shacks, gardens, sheds, and shrubs providing sufficient cover to approach the river unnoticed.

Nothing moved on the far bank. It was noon. It was a scorching day, and the air shimmered with the heat. Shortly before 1400 hours the sappers with their assault boats had reached their starting positions down by the river. Not a shot had yet been fired. A last glance at the watch. Another minute to go.

At 1400 exactly came a short blast on a whistle. The first groups leapt to their feet. Together with the sappers they

pushed the boats into the water. With a whine the motors sprang into life. Like arrows the assault boats streaked across the river.

The machine-gunners of 1st and 2nd Companies, 409th Infantry Regiment, lay tense on the bank, their fingers on the triggers. The moment the first shot was fired at the boats from the far bank they would open up for all they were worth in order to keep the Russians down. But there was no shot.

Ten seconds had passed. The boats with the first four groups were moving acros the river at speed. Thirty seconds. The next groups leapt into their boats and moved off. The assault sappers were standing by the tillers of their outboard motors, stripped to the waist. The rest of the men were crouching low, with only their steel helmets showing above the gunwales. Fifty seconds had passed. The first boat had another 30 yards to cover before reaching the bank.

In the crossing sector of 1st Company the first shot rang out. Everybody held his breath: surely hell would now be let loose and the boats be shot to pieces. But nothing happened. Desultory fire from a few carbines brought two rapid bursts from a German machine-gun. After that everything was quiet again. The Russians pickets vanished. But no doubt they would raise the alarm.

Strangely enough, nothing happened during the next half-hour. The battalion had crossed the river. Quickly patrols were formed. They reconnoitred as far as the edge of the wood and returned. "No enemy contact."

Were the Russians asleep? Let's go!

At 1515 hours the battalion began its drive through the forest of Panikovo.

There was sporadic harassing fire by light enemy guns. The interval between firing and shell-bursts was very brief. The officers pricked up their ears. These could be tanks. They could only hope for the best. They were indeed tanks.

Some 80 yards in front of the company, on the left wing, the whine of engines suddenly came from a nursery plantation of fir-trees. Bushes were flung aside. Crashing out over snapping young fir-trunks, three, four, five, six Russian tanks, light T-26s, struck at the deep flank of the German units, firing continuously. The worst thing that could happen to infantry. So that was why the Russians had lain silent. They had laid a trap—a deadly trap for the whole battalion.

The men of 2nd Company flung themselves under cover. Accompanying Russian infantry came bursting out of the wood with shouts of "Urra." Hand-grenades exploded. Fiery lines of tracer zoomed to and fro.

Zigzagging among the trees, the tanks tried to wipe out the German infantrymen who were hiding behind tree-trunks and in the thick undergrowth. It was like a hunt with beaters. Wherever a tank appeared the German troops dived or rolled behind trees and bushes. "Damn," they cursed.

They had every reason for cursing: the battalion did not bave a single anti-tank gun with it. They had shunned the difficulties of manhandling the guns through swamp and forest. Now they had to pay for it. The T-26s were able to drive around unmolested.

To add to their misfortunes, both the battalion's ' transmitter and that of the artillery spotter attached to it were put out of action. There was nothing left for Captain Reuter but to order: "Form hedgehog and hold out!"

The Russian infantry attacked under cover of their tanks. Hand-to-hand fighting developed. But fortunately the Russians were weak and it was possible to hold them off. Only the tanks were driving around at will in the battle area.

If some competent Soviet commander had quickly supported his half-dozen tanks with major rifle formations the doom of Captain Reuter's 1st Battalion would have been sealed. But that Russian commander somewhere did not see his chance. And some German runner from the headquarters of Lieutenant Neitzel's 3rd Company somehow managed to get through to the battalions which had crrossed the river farther east and report what was happening in the wood.

Thus, towards 1900 hours, as the German resistance was weakening, a metallic clank was heard through the forest. Again, and a third time. With a flash of flame a Soviet tank was flung aside. Another crash. The old soldiers raised their heads out of cover. "Listen—7.5s! German tanks!"

And already the grey monsters were pushing their way through the undergrowth—self-propelled guns. The Russian tanks disappeared. As if to make up for past omissions, the remnants of the company rallied quickly and hurriedly followed the self-propelled guns, out of the forest, against the Russian positions which now lay clearly before them.

The following noon Panikovo fell. The road was open into the rear of the Soviet barrier around Luga. The SS Police Division and the 269th Infantry Division, which had worked their way close to Luga in frontal attack, went into action once more. They advanced right and left of the town for an enveloping attack.

The reinforced 2nd Rifle Regiment of the SS Police Division, which had been brought forward into the Luga bridgehead behind 122nd Infantry Division, was able to make a northward penetration and push ahead as far as the edge of Luga.

On the right wing the attack of 96th Infantry Division likewise went well. On llth August the men from Lower Saxony crossed the Mshaga sector, wheeled towards the north, and then pierced the Soviet positions in their deep left flank. In the course of their further advance a forward unit forced the Oredezh river at Pechkova and cut yet another rearward supply line of the Soviet units still holding out at Luga. The Chief of Staff of the Soviet Army at Luga was taken prisoner, wounded, by 96th Infantry Division.

The situation now turned critical for the five divisions of the Soviet XLI Corps. In their rear the battalions of 9th and 122nd Infantry Divisions were reaching out for the only road leading through the swamp. On their right and left they were in danger of being outflanked. The Russian commander therefore gave his units the only correct order—to try to fight their way through to Leningrad in small formations.

For that, however, it was too late. The retreating Soviet forces were pushed into the swamps east of the highway and subsequently annihilated in the so-called Luga pockets through the co-operation with 8th Panzer Division and 96th Infantry Division. The spoils of battle were 21,000 prisoners, 316 tanks, and 600 guns. Even more important was the fact that the only hard main road to Leningrad was now clear for the infantry of L and XXVIII Corps, as well as for supply traffic.

"On 3rd September the highway was taken over with a deep sigh of relief from all operational and supply headquarters of the Army Group," recalls General Châles de Beaulieu, the Chief of Staff of Hoepner's Panzer Group. One can understand the sigh of relief. A vital lifeline had at last been secured for the final attack against Leningrad.

But what had happened meanwhile in the area of Reinhardt's XLI Panzer Corps? What was the position of the spearheads of 4th Panzer Group, poised as they were for the final attack on Leningrad from the west, with hardly any appreciable enemy forces between them and the great objective of the campaign? This question contains in itself the real tragedy of the battle of Leningrad, a tragedy of errors with fateful consequences for the entire course of the war.

After General von Manstein's LVI Panzer Corps had been detached from 4th Panzer Group in mid-August, because of the crisis near Staraya Russa, Colonel-General Hoepner found himself compelled again to put the brakes on his sucessfully developing attack against Leningrad. The flanks were getting too extended. In particular, the northern flank of 4th Panzer Group had to be protected against the enemy divisions streaming back from Estonia via Narva and

Kingi-sepp. To begin with, the 1st Infantry Division from East Prussia was used for covering the Group's wide-open left flank, while 58th Infantry Division, following behind it, wheeled north and advanced towards the Kingisepp-Narva railway-line. Before long, however, General Reinhardt had to employ nearly all his motorized formations on flank cover.

The reinforced 6th Rifle Brigade under General Raus, and subsequently Lieutenant-General Ottenbacher's 36th Motorized Infantry Division, had to cover the left flank. The 8th Panzer Division, following on the other wing of the Corps, was gradually turned towards the south-east, and eventually wheeled right to the south for the final attack on Luga. Thus all that was left for the attack on Leningrad proper, from the west, was the reinforced 1st Panzer Division

and the combat group Koll (the reinforced llth Panzer Regiment, 6th Panzer Division). To try to take a city of several million inhabitants with such slight forces would have been foolhardy— especially as the striking force of 1st Panzer Division on 16th August, apart from two weakened armoured infantry carrier battalions, was down to 18 Mark II tanks, 20 Mark Ills, and 6 Mark IVs. In these conditions the most exemplary offensive morale was no use. Nor, for that matter, was the employment of short-range squadrons of VIII Air Corps. Naturally, Colonel-General Hoepner took advantage of the fact that no effective Russian divisions of the line were left between him and the city, and cautiously advanced by about six miles each day. In this manner by 21st August the vanguards of 4th Panzer Group reached the area north-west and south-west of Krasnogvardeysk—25 miles from Leningrad.

In this situation there was only one decision for Army Group North—a decision which Hoepner bad been urging upon Field-Marshal Ritter von Leeb ever since 15th August: Colonel-General Kiichler's Eighteenth Army must at last be switched from Estonia to the Luga front in order, at the very least, to take over the Panzer Group's northern flank cover and thus to free its mobile formations for the final attack on Leningrad.

The C-in-C Army Group North could not in the long run turn a deaf ear to this justified request. But instead of assigning to Eighteenth Army a clear and unambiguous objective, Field-Marshal Ritter von Leeb gave it a dual task on 17th August: on Estonia's Baltic coast it was to destroy the Soviet Eighth Army, then withdrawing from Estonia via Narva—in other words, eliminate the threat to the flank of Reinhardt's Panzer divisions before Krasnogvardeysk; at the same time Küchler was ordered to capture the coastal fortifications along the southern edge of the Gulf of Finland, where Soviet covering forces had been digging in. This proved to be a downright disastrous double order. While giving Eighteenth Army the chance of scoring spectacular successes, these victories would cost a great deal of precious time and, measured by the final objective of the campaign, would be unnecessary. The Russian strongpoints to both sides of Narva could have been equally well cut off by covering forces and starved out. There was no need to waste time and fighting men by engaging them in battle and tying down strong forces on a secondary front at the very moment when the Army Group's striking forces before Leningrad were desperately in need of every battalion they could get.

Eighteenth Army needed a full eleven days to move from Narva to Opolye, a distance of 25 miles as the crow flies. In a study of the battle of Leningrad the Chief of Staff of 4th Panzer Group observes correctly: "And that at a time when every single man was needed outside Leningrad!"

If formations of Eighteenth Army had been made available to 4th Panzer Group in good time and on a sufficient scale Colonel-General Hoepner would have had a chance of taking Leningrad with his mobile forces by a coup as early as the second half of August. That Hoepner, an old cavalry man and one of the most experienced tank commanders in the Wehrmacht, had it in him to pull off such an operation is proved by the great successes of his XVI Panzer Corps in the Polish and French campaigns, as well as by the successful drive of his armour through very difficult country right up to the gates of Leningrad. Why then was this chance missed?