Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (64 page)

HOWEVER, disaster was still threatening north and south of the motor highway, at Rzhev and Sukhinichi. The inner prong of the Soviet offensive was a direct threat to the front-line units of the German Ninth and Fourth Armies.

Rzhev, more than anything, was the objective of the Soviet attacks. The Russians wanted to take this cornerstone of the German Central Front at all costs. If they succeeded it would mean the outflanking and encirclement of the Ninth Army.

When enemy tanks suddenly rumble past the front door of an Army headquarters and the front is only half a mile away, these are sure signs of incipient disaster. On 12th January 1942, in the late afternoon, the German Ninth Army was faced with just such a disaster.

The time was 1600 hours. In the map room of Army headquarters in Sychevka, in front of the situation map, stood Lieutenant-Colonel Blaurock, the Army chief of operations, with Major-General Krüger, commanding 1st Panzer Division from Thuringia. Also present, to acquaint themselves with the situation, were Lieutenant-Colonel Wenck, the division's chief of operations, Lieutenant-Colonel von Wietersheim, commanding 113th Rifle Regiment, and Lieutenant-Colonel Holste, commanding 73rd Artillery Regiment. The most forward combat group of 1st Panzer Division had just arrived at Sychevka. A week ago this small town with its huge railway goods yard had been a quiet

spot behind the lines—an Army headquarters and rearward supply base, a paradise for supply officials and paymasters. For two days now it had been the front line.

The stuttering of machine-guns and the dull thud of mortars could be heard in the room. "If I may acquaint you, sir, with this bloody mess of a situation," the Army chief of operations said to Krüger. "Since 9th January the Russians have been keeping up their full-scale attack from the Ostashkov area against the left wing of our cut-off XXIII Army Corps, and have pushed it down to the south. At the same time there have been fairly strong attacks against the left wing of VI Army Corps—here." Blaurock stabbed the map with his finger. "Our request for permission to take the front back to the Gzhatsk-Volga line was turned down. Since llth January there have been strong enemy attacks from the north-west, striking towards the south and west of Sychevka, with the most forward enemy units on the town's western outskirts." Blaurock placed his hand on Sychevka and said imploringly, "Hold Sychevka for us, Herr General

—it must not be lost."

The commander and officers of 1st Panzer Division nodded. They understood the difficult situation they saw before them. What surprised them was that Colonel-General Strauss, the Army C-in-C, was not personally present at this conference. The chief of operations explained: "Colonel-General Strauss's health is finished. The chief of staff, too, has to go on sick leave. We're expecting the new Army Commander-in-Chief any day now—General Model." There were surprised faces all round.

So Model was the new C-in-C Ninth Army. His had been a meteoric rise. Three months previously he had still been commanding a division—the famous 3rd Panzer Division.

The short, wiry man from Gen thin, born in 1891, was well known at the various headquarters throughout Army Group Centre. He was known even better to the men of 1st Panzer Division who had fought under his command within the framework of XLI Panzer Corps ever since Kalinin. He was popular with his troops, much though he differed from his predecessor, Colonel-General Reinhardt. Everybody knew that where Model was in command the good fortune of war was present: the most daring enterprises came off and the most critical situations were retrieved. Nowhere was a man of his type needed more urgently at that moment than with Ninth Army.

Blaurock once more stepped up to the large map. "The situation has really become more than extremely critical during the past forty-eight hours," he said with typical General Staff detachment.

He pointed to the heavy red arrows. "Here, to the west of Rzhev, the Russians have punched a nine-mile hole into our front. Two Soviet Armies, the Twenty-ninth and the Thirty-ninth, have for the past two days been pouring through this hole to the south, with armour, infantry, and columns of sledges. Approximately nine divisions have already got through. Our XXIII Corps is severed, encircled, and can be supplied only by air. The VI Corps, thank heaven, has succeeded in establishing and holding a new defensive front west and south-west of Rzhev."

Map 20.
At the beginning of January 1942 the Soviets broke through the front of the Ninth Army and drove deep into the rear of Army Group Centre. A most critical situation had arisen.

Blaurock traced the red arrows with his hand. "The Soviet spearheads—cavalry, mind you—are already west of Vyazma on the motor highway, the lifeline of the whole Army Group Centre. But so far these forces do not appear to be very strong, and they do not represent the main problem. Far more difficult at the moment is the situation here." And Blaurock pointed to a tangle of red rings and arrows about 30 miles south-west of Rzehv.

"As you see," he continued, "strong Soviet forces have swung round towards Sychevka behind the most forward units of Twenty-ninth and Thirty-ninth Armies. The Russians quite clearly intend to take the town, to wheel northward, and to encircle the Army. At the moment they are fighting for the railway-line to Rzehv. If they capture it the supplies of our entire Army will be cut off. Our entire supplies and reinforcements hang by this one line. If Sychevka falls we shall be outmanoeuvred. The Russians, gentlemen, are already on our doorstep. Their spearheads have already penetrated into the railway-yards, but are fortunately busy looting. I say fortunately, because the edge of the town is held only by emergency units hurriedly scraped together of runners and supply drivers, led by Colonel Kruse, the chief of Army artillery. On the edge of the goods yard is your 6th Company, 1st Rifle Regiment, which arrived just before midnight."

Major-General Krüger, an easy-going Saxon who was not readily ruffled, uttered a much-used trooper's word. Wieter- sheim nodded and muttered, "That's putting it mildly."

Half an hour after this conversation at Army headquarters in Sychevka the forward units of combat group von Wieter- sheim were moving into action to engage the Soviets, who had already established themselves in the railway-yards and in the sheds of the extensive supply depot. The troops consisted of a few armoured infantry carriers and a reinforced company of the Motorcycle Battalion, 1st Division—men from Langen-salza and Sondershausen, led by First Lieutenant Pätzold.

Pätzold, who had worked his way forward to a shed with his runner, was watching the goods station of Sychevka- North through his binoculars. "It's as busy as a Michaelmas Fair," he uttered in surprise.

The motor-cyclists beat their arms round their bodies to keep themselves warm. The lieutenant came back and mounted his motor-cycle. "Forward!"

The scene among the sheds and store huts of the goods station really looked like a fair-ground. The Russians were dragging crates and cases of foodstuffs from the sheds and were beside themselves with delight at the things they found. The special rations for airmen and tank crews, in particular, met with their approval—chocolate, biscuits, and dried fruit. But the legs of pork in aspic, the liver sausage, and the fish conserves were also acknowledged with shrieks of delight. They opened the tins with their bayonets and ceaselessly tried one after another. "Papushka, look at this— try it."

Then there were the cigarettes! "Just have a whiff of this— not at all like our makhorka smelling of printer's ink and

Pravda
newsprint."

But by far the greatest magnetic attraction was exercised by the French cognac. The soldiers knocked off the necks of the bottles and quaffed the magnificent liquor, which, by comparison with their rough vodka, seemed as wonderfully mild as sweetened tea.

The Russians were getting merry. They no longer felt the 40 degrees below. They were forgetting the accursed war. They burst into song. They cheered. They embraced and kissed each other. No warning was given by any sentry. Not a single rifle was fired. But suddenly the bursts of machine-gun fire from Patzold's motor-cyclists swept among the sheds. Hand-grenades exploded. Sub-machine-guns spat their bullets from infantry carriers. In wild panic the Soviets ran away. They did not get far. They fell in the machine-gun fire and died among the canned food and the cigarettes, among the Hennessey cognac and the tins of biscuits.

If one wanted to put it frivolously one would be entitled to say that the first German victory at Sychevka was won by chocolate and French cognac. Only because the Russians were so busy with their precious booty could weak units of 1st Panzer Division succeed in snatching the vital railway-yards from a greatly superior enemy. It was a situation that was by no means unique.

General Infantes, the Commander of the Spanish Blue Division, for instance, makes the following point in an impressive study of the Spanish volunteers' operations in Russia: "We found not infrequently that, after successful local attacks, the Russian troops would forget their tasks and waste precious time. By mounting immediate counter- attacks we would often catch them searching our dug-outs for food, or emptying tins of jam or bottles of brandy. This weakness of theirs was always fatal, because they rarely got away alive. Sometimes we would overcome them in our counter-attacks because they had lost their way in the labyrinth of our trench system. It is true that the Red Army men will advance unflinchingly towards any objective they have been given. What makes them dangerous is not only their up-to-date weapons, but also the vodka issued to them, which turns them into savage fighters. Their well-prepared large-scale mass attacks are undoubtedly very dangerous, since the 'Russian steamroller' crushes anything that opposes its progress. All one can do then is face the attackers with cold steel. But a well-organized counter-action will always take the Russians by surprise."

During the next two days further parts of 1st Panzer Division arrived. Together with 337th Infantry Regiment, airlifted from France to Russia, they cleared the enemy from the immediate surroundings of Sychevka and restored connections

with the airstrip at Novo-Dugino, south of the town, where the Luftwaffe had been holding out in all-round defence for a number of days. Surrounded bakery companies, dug in around their huge baking-ovens, and a hard-pressed Army signals company were relieved. The men of an Army horse hospital were freed from their encirclement. Immediate Soviet counterattacks were successfuly repulsed.

A few days after their first conference at Ninth Army headquarters the commander and chief of operations of 1st Panzer Division had again called on the Ninth Army chief of operations to acquaint themselves with Army's further intentions with regard to the fighting for Rzhev and Sychevka. Greetings had only just been exchanged when a door was heard slamming outside—the door of a German jeep. Words of command were shouted. An orderly entered and announced: "General Model."

In a three-quarter-length greatcoat, with old-fashioned but practical earflaps over his ears, with soft high boots, the indispensable monocle in his right eye, the new Commander-in-Chief stepped into the room. The man radiated energy and fearlessness. He shook hands with the officers. He flung his coat, cap, and ear-flaps on a chair. He polished his monocle, which had steamed up in the warm room. Then he stepped up to the situation map. "Rather a mess," he said drily, and briefly studied the latest entries.

"I have already informed the gentlemen in rough outline about the main problems," Blaurock reported. "The first thing Ninth Army has to do is to establish the situation around Sychevka and to secure the Rzhev—Sychevka—Vyazma railway-line. Following a stabilization at Sychevka itself, through 1st Panzer Division, the forward units of the 'Reich' SS Motorized Infantry Division are at present arriving."

General of PaMer Troops Model, a dashing commander in the field as well as a coolly calculating staff officer, nodded. "And then the first thing to do will be to close the gap up here." He ran his hand over the wide red arrows indicating the Russian penetrations west of Rzhev between Nikolskoye and Solomino. "We've got to turn off the supply-tap of those Russian divisions which have broken through. And from down here"—Model put his hand on Sychevka—"we shall then strike at the Russian flank and catch them in a stranglehold."