Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (88 page)

But in spite of all their gallantry the engagement would probably have ended badly for Wellmann's group if the bulk of 3rd Panzer Division had not got to Rossosh in time. Soviet resistance was broken. Major-General Breith's Berlin Division had reached one more important milestone along its road to the Don.

Nevertheless the upheaval which the German time-table had suffered as a result of the fighting for Voronezh was being felt everywhere. In the area south of Rossosh, around Millerovo, fairly strong enemy forces were suspected to be present; these were now to be destroyed by direct attack before any further advance was made. This was yet another deviation from the original plan, another sin against the spirit of a fast operation towards Stalingrad.

It was amid this rather confused situation that the third phase of "Operation Blue" began, the phase which, according to Directive No. 41, was to usher in the decisive stage of the great summer offensive of 1942—the attack of the southern prong with General Ruoff's Seventeenth Army and Colonel-General von Kleist's First Panzer Army on 9th July, The objective was a link-up in the area—note: the area, not the city—of Stalingrad, with a view to encircling and destroying the Russian forces between Donets and Don.

But just as he had done in the north, so Timoshenko resisted in the south at a few chosen points only, while the bulk of his armies were pulling out towards the east and the south.

As a result, the attack of the southern prong achieved nothing beyond pushing the retreating Russians in front of it into the great Don loop. But there no German line had yet been established .which might have cut off the path of the withdrawing Russian formations.

When Hitler realized that an encircling operation on the middle Don was no longer possible because of the Russians' quick wthdrawal and the delay suffered at Voronezh, he wanted at least to intercept, encircle, and destroy the enemy forces which he believed to be still grouped along the lower Don. In order to achieve this objective he dropped on 13th July the key feature of his great plan—the rapid drive to Stalingrad with all forces in order to bar the lower Volga.

Hitler would have been well able to carry out this operation—indeed, in the circumstances, it would have been the only correct thing to do. For if an enemy refuses to be encircled and withdraws instead, then he must be pursued. He must not be allowed time to establish a new line of defence. The German objective now was the elimination of enemy forces in the Stalingrad area, and that objective could have been achieved by an energetic pursuit of the Russians.

After all, Hitler had two Panzer Armies at his disposal, and some important crossings over the Don had already been gained. He could have reached Stalingrad in a very short period of time. But Hilter was suffering from a great delusion: he believed the Soviets to be at the end of their strength. He regarded the Soviet retreat as nothing more than flight, as organizational and moral collapse, whereas in actual fact it was a planned withdrawal.

Such incidents of panic as occurred in many places were due to the incompetence of the lower ranks of the Russian command. Strategically, Timoshenko had the withdrawal well under control. He had set it swiftly into motion. His objective was to save the bulk of the Soviet forces for determined resistance far back in the interior of the country.

Hitler did not see that danger, or else did not want to see it. He believed he could manage Stalingrad "with one hand" and simultaneously fight a large-scale battle of encirclement on the lower Don with Rostov at its centre. For that purpose he cut short Fourth Panzer Army's advance along the Don towards Stalingrad, halting it in front of the great Don loop, and, in complete divergence from phase three of the grand plan, turned it straight down to the south. Just as he had halted the advance on Moscow in the early autumn of 1941 and switched round Guderian's fast troops to fight their battle of encirclement at Kiev, he now wanted to defeat the Russians at Rostov by another improvised surprise operation. It was to be the greatest battle of encirclement of the war.

The Sixth Army meanwhile continued its lonely advance towards Stalingrad, now deprived of its spearhead, the fast units of XL Panzer Corps, which had also been switched to Rostov.

On the same day that this fateful decision was taken Field-Marshal von Bock was relieved of his post. He had opposed Hitler's strategic plans and had wanted to keep the Army Group together as an integrated fighting force under his command.

However, the Fuehrer's Headquarters had already issued orders for Army Group South to be divided up. On 7th July Field-Marshal von Bock noted in his diary: "Orders received that Field-Marshal List will assume command of Eleventh and Seventeenth Armies and of First Panzer Army. This means that the battle is being chopped in two."

That was precisely what was happening: the battle was being chopped in two. Hitler was changing not only the time- table of his great summer offensive, but the entire structure of the southern front.

Field-Marshal List's Army Group A, to which Fourth Panzer Army was later temporarily attached, was informally known as the Caucasus Front. Army Group B, consisting of Sixth Army, the Hungarian Second Army, and Second Army, and since Bock's recall under the command of Colonel-General von Weichs, retained its original assignment— Stalingrad.

This regrouping makes it clear that on 13th July Hitler believed that he could simultaneously achieve both great strategic objectives of the 1942 summer offensive, originally scheduled one after the other, by the simple expedient of dividing his forces. He was hopelessly blinded by his mistaken belief that the Russians were 'finished.'

But the Russians were anything but 'finished.' On the very day that Hitler ordered the disastrous turn to the south, split up his forces, and sacked von Bock, a council of war was held at the Kremlin under Stalin's chairmanship.

Present were Foreign Minister Molotov, Marshal Voro-shilov, Chief of the General Staff Shaposhnikov, as well as an American, a British, and a Chinese liaison officer. The Soviet General Staff had made it clear to Stalin that he could not afford any more battles like Kiev or Vyazma—in other words, that holding on at all costs was out. Stalin had accepted their view. He endorsed the decision of the Great General Staff which was expounded by Shaposhnikov at the meeting on 13th July. The Soviet troops would withdraw to the Volga and into the Caucasus; there they would offer resistance, forcing the Germans to spend the coming winter in inhospitable territory. All key industries would be evacuated to the Urals and to Siberia.

From the middle of July the German General Staff had known from an agent's report about this important meeting, but Hitler had regarded it as a canard.

If there was anyone left who doubted that Timoshenko was in fact withdrawing his Army Group, down to the last man

and gun, from the area between Donets and Don, then he was soon convinced at Millerovo. The XL Panzer Corps, acting as the outer eastern prong of the pincers, thrust straight into this Russian withdrawal after having wheeled south from Rossosh, with all its three divisions moving in the foremost line.

All along the railway and the road south of Millerovo the Soviet masses were pouring to the south-east. The divisions of the German Panzer Corps were not strong enough to halt these enemy columns. Nor, in view of the resistance offered them around Millerovo, were they able to establish an intercepting line farther south on the lower Don.

The battle was moving south. It was in the south that Hitler was seeking out the enemy. Indeed, he was so confident of victory in the south that he deleted Manstein's Eleventh Army—which was standing ready in the Crimea to strike across the Kerch Strait—from his plan of operations. Instead the Eleventh Army was entrained for the north. It was to take Leningrad.

After fierce fighting Geyr's XL Panzer Corps reached the lower Don on 20th July and established bridgeheads at Konstantinovka and Nikolayevskaya.

In the meantime the First Panzer Army, forming the inner prong of the new pincer operation, had likewise fought its way towards the south, crossed the Donets, and begun, jointly with Seventeenth Army advancing from the Staline area, to drive upon Rostov, which was being defended with particular determination by the Soviets as a key bridgehead on the Don.

West of Rostov the Seventeenth Army had broken through enemy positions on 19th July and was now advancing towards the Don between Rostov and Bataysk with LVII Panzer Corps on the left and V Corps on the right. General Kirchner, again supported by his well-tried Colonel Wenck, mounted a bold thrust against Rostov with LVII Panzer Corps, with a view to taking this important city on the Don estuary by surprise and capturing the great Don bridge between Rostov and Bataysk intact. To his Corps belonged the 13th Panzer Division, the SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Viking," the 125th Infantry Division, and the Slovak Fast Division.

From the north, leading the First Panzer Army, General von Mackensen's III Panzer Corps was advancing on Rostov with 14th and 22nd Panzer Divisions. Once again, as in November 1941, von Mackensen's formations were engaged in fighting for this city. On 22nd July Colonel Rodt's 22nd Panzer Division was involved in heavy fighting north-east of Rostov. The 204th Panzer Regiment was driving to the south. The 14th Panzer Division was wheeling against Novocherkassk. All through the day and night furious fighting raged in the strongly fortified approaches to the city.

On the same day the 13th Panzer Division under Major-General Herr and the SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Viking" under General of Waffen SS Steiner attacked from the west and north-west. Rostov itself had been reinforced into a strongly defended town since the beginning of the year and, in addition to strong defences in the approaches, was surrounded by three defensive rings with deep minefields, anti-tank ditches, and anti-tank obstacles. Nevertheless assault parties of LVII Panzer Corps succeeded in breaching the covering-lines on the edge of the city by surprise. The non-armoured group of 13th Panzer Division attacked from the west with 93rd Rifle Regiment, while the armoured group of the reinforced 4th Panzer Regiment advanced along the Stalino-Rostov road and penetrated into the northern part of the city. On its right the Armoured Group Gille of the SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Viking" struck right through numerous strongpoints and anti-tank ditches of the outer defensive ring and seized the airfield of Rostov with Sturmbannführer Miihlenkamp's SS Panzer Battalion.

On 23rd July the 22nd Panzer Division slowly gained ground from the north towards the edge of the city. In the sector of LVII Panzer Corps the 13th Panzer Division continued its attack into the city with tanks, rifle companies, and motor-cyclists. The SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Viking" got stuck initially in heavy street fighting, and 125th Infantry Division closed up behind it. At first light First Lieutenant von Gaza burst through the enemy positions with his 2nd Company, 66th Rifle Regiment, forced a small river, and seized the road bridge.

The Motor-cycle Battalion 43 charged into the city, mounted. The 13th Panzer Division cleared numerous roadblocks and barricades and slowly gained ground towards the Don. But while its spearheads were moving forward, enemy resistance flared up again behind them from side-streets, from strongly reinforced blocks of buildings, and, in particular, from open squares along its flanks.

To begin with, the tanks of the "Viking" got stuck in the street fighting. Then Sturmbannführer Dieckmann succeeded with his battalion in dislodging the enemy and resuming the attack in a south-westerly direction.

By afternoon the Motor-cycle Battalion, 13th Panzer Division, had reached the northern bank of the Don, but in the maze of industrial and port installations they had reached the river rather too far east of the main road bridge. Before the motor-cyclists were able to reach the bridge over the Don, leading to Bataysk, one of its spans was blown up and crashed into the water. While 13th Panzer Division was clearing up the area around the bridge the sappers worked feverishly until the following day, making the bridge serviceable again, though at first only for pedestrians and light vehicles. By nightfall the district north of the bridge was in German hands. The 1st Battalion, 66th Rifle Regiment, took the district around the General Post Office and the NKVD Headquarters, where the enemy resisted stubbornly and skilfully. By nightfall the infantry had taken up positions covering the tanks from all directions. There were fires in many parts of the town. In the early hours of the night units of 22nd Panzer Division, coming from the north, accomplished the first link-up between the spearheads of III and LVII Panzer Corps in the centre of Rostov.

Early in the morning of 24th July the fighting for the city was resumed. In the area of the post-office the enemy was overwhelmed fairly quickly, but the NKVD Headquarters was being skilfully defended by a crack force. Not until noon did riflemen of 13th Panzer Division, supported by tanks of 22nd Panzer Division, succeed in breaking enemy resistance and taking the building.

Other units of 13th Panzer Division and "Viking" had meanwhile succeeded in mopping up much of the city centre and pushing the stubbornly resisting enemy out eastward or westward. While 13th Panzer Division was holding the district north of the bridge to Bataysk, the Panzer Battalion "Viking" under Sturmbannführer Mühlenkamp thrust along the northern bank of the Don and by a surprise coup took a ford six miles west of the city—a ford used by the enemy for his withdrawal—thereby enabling the foremost units of XLIX Mountain Corps and the vanguards of 73rd and 298th Infantry Divisions to cross the Don there during the night of 24th/25th July.